The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

I did not plan to live after he was gone.

I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it—in such a way did I learn to live beside the rushing torrent of his doom.

six, seven

“There are too many of them,” he said. “It’s simpler if they just remember me.”

was not honor that made Meleager fight, or his friends, or victory, or revenge, or even his own life. It was Cleopatra, on her knees before him, her face streaked with tears. Here is Phoinix’s craft: Cleopatra, Patroclus. Her name built from the same pieces as mine, only reversed.

“I hope that Hector kills you.” The breath rasps in his throat. “Do you think I do not hope the same?” he asks.

achilles, it reads. And beside it, patroclus. “Go,” she says. “He waits for you.” In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.