Foreshadowing in Iliad

Here Jove lays out the plan for all the events to come. The Iliad is unique in that there is no real element of suspense or surprise for the audience or the characters. Each character’s fate is predetermined from the start, leaving the real element of drama in the way each acts or reacts despite already knowing what the ultimate outcome will be. All characters still attempts to make decisions and choices even though there isn’t much room for free will under the prophecies that hang over their individual lives.

This passage is an important instance of foreshadowing in the Iliad. Patroclus asks to borrow Achilles’s armor and lead his men into battle while Achilles continues to hold out against Agamemnon, thinking that the Trojan forces may mistake him for Achilles and fall back in fear. The Trojans do mistake him for Achilles, and it is this that leads to Hector’s killing him and subsequently incurring the wrath of Achilles and his rejoining the Achaean forces in the war.

The hero of the Trojans, Hector, is faced with his imminent death. Not even Zeus's helmet can save him, though the god takes it from where it rolled away from Patroclus in the action of battle and gifts it to him in an attempt to give him an advantage.

In this line, Achilles foreshadows his own death, which occurs after the Iliad ends.

This references the death of Achilles; he will be killed by Paris, who will be assisted by the god Apollo.

Andromache’s words foreshadow of the terrible death of Astyanax, which will occur shortly after the fall of Troy. Greek mythology shows that he will be thrown to his death.