词汇班L15-16要点讲解.docVIP

Lesson 15 Achilles’ Heel Step 1 ( ) 1. Where does the idiom Achilles’ heel come from? A. The Arabian nights B. Aesop fables C. The lliad D. A Chinese history ( ) 2. Where did Achilles’ mother put him to make him bulletproof? A. In the swimming poor B. In the river C. In the bathtub D. In oil. ( ) 3. Which part of Achilles’ body was his weakness? A. his head B. his belly C. his stomach D. his heel ( ) 4. Why was his heel the weakest part? A. He couldn’t walk. B. There was something wrong with his feet. C. It didn’t touch the river. ( ) 5. What can we learn from the story? A. We should be brave in the battle. B. Everyone has his or her merits. C. Everyone has his or her weak points. Step 2 257/ 5 NOTES: Achilles’ heel has a story of itself. The literary quotation comes from Homer’s epic The llias. In the Trojan War, the Myrmidons, the bravest and the most skillful in battle, were under the command of Achilles peculiar treatment when he was born, and therefore, he was invulnerable. Thetis was a goddess of the sea. Both Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Zeus, the king of the gods, were interested in her, but neither of them dared to marry her, because her future son was doomed to be more capable than his father. Finally, she married a mortal King Peleus and gave birth to Achilles. After Achilles was born, she carried him to the River Styx and held him in the water to make him invulnerable. However, the water did not touch his heel, so his heel became his only weakness. The first of the fifty princes of Troy was called Hector, who protected Troy from being brought down. He was brave, but in the final decisive battle with Achilles, he was still being chased a good many laps around the city walls before fighting against Achilles. In the folk drama, Hector is often described as a role of boast, and therefore, in the English language, the word “hectoring” is employed to express “to boast” and “to talk big”. Achilles, who ki