There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord.

The line is spoken in Homer’s Iliad during the climactic encounter between Achilles and Hector near the end of the poem. After Hector has killed Achilles’ companion Patroclus, Achilles returns to battle in a fury and drives the Trojans back to the walls of Troy. When Hector proposes an agreement about how the victor will treat the loser’s body, Achilles rejects any notion of a pact between them, comparing their relationship to that between natural enemies (lions and men; wolves and lambs). The remark underscores the poem’s brutal warrior code and the personal, irreconcilable nature of Achilles’ vengeance.

The quote denies the possibility of mutual trust or negotiated restraint between fundamentally unequal or hostile parties. By invoking predator–prey pairings, it frames the conflict as governed by nature rather than diplomacy: some antagonisms are so absolute that “concord” is a category mistake. In the Iliad’s context, Achilles’ refusal of a compact signals that the fight is not merely strategic but moral and emotional—an act of retribution that overrides customary limits. More broadly, the line has been used to express skepticism about treaties where power is asymmetric or where enmity is existential, suggesting that peace requires shared interests and a minimum of mutual recognition.