Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.

This line comes from Homer’s Iliad during the embassy to Achilles in Book 9. After Agamemnon’s earlier insult, the Greeks send Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax to offer gifts and reconciliation, hoping Achilles will return to battle. In his reply, Achilles rejects the offer and denounces duplicity and political maneuvering. The statement expresses his insistence on frankness and his contempt for those who conceal their true intentions—an attitude sharpened by his sense that Agamemnon has spoken honorably while acting dishonorably. The “gates of Hades” comparison invokes the most loathed, death-haunted boundary in the epic imagination.

Achilles equates double-minded speech—saying one thing while meaning another—with something as abhorrent as the entrance to the underworld. In the Iliad’s honor culture, trust and reputation are social glue; deception corrodes both. The line also dramatizes Achilles’ moral absolutism: he prefers open enmity to polite hypocrisy, and he frames sincerity as a kind of heroic integrity. At the same time, the irony is Homeric: the epic repeatedly shows that persuasion, strategy, and concealment are powerful tools (especially for Odysseus). Achilles’ condemnation thus marks a tension between straightforward warrior ethics and the more complex realities of leadership and survival.

“I hate that man like the very gates of Hades who says one thing but hides another in his heart.”
“Hateful to me as Hades’ gates is the man who hides one thing in his mind and says another.”
“I detest that man, like the gates of Hades, who speaks one thing and thinks another.”