The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

bones sharp and spindly, poking against taut skin. My eye catches on a light head among dozens of dark, tousled crowns. I lean forward to see. Hair lit like honey in the sun, and within it, glints of gold—the circlet of a prince.

Heracles was the greatest of our heroes, and Philoctetes had been the closest of his companions, the only one still living.

“The bow of Heracles,” Philoctetes named it, “given to me at his death.”

Agamemnon.

“Give me your solution and you shall have it.”

“Then here it is. I believe that we should let Helen choose.” Odysseus paused, to allow for the murmurs of disbelief; women did not have a say in such things.

The boy’s family demanded immediate exile or death. They were powerful, and this was their eldest son.

They might permit a king to burn their fields or rape their daughters, as long as payment was made. But you did not touch a man’s sons. For this, the nobles would riot.

I would be exiled, and fostered in another man’s kingdom. In exchange for my weight in gold, they would rear me to manhood.

This was how I came to be ten, and an orphan. This is how I came to Phthia.

The blood from the wounds she had given him mixed with the smears of lost maidenhead on her thighs. Her resistance mattered no longer: a deflowering was as binding as marriage vows.

Until this moment I had been a prince, expected and announced. Now I was negligible.

Exile might satisfy the anger of the living, but it did not appease the dead.

In the huge hall, his beauty shone like a flame, vital and bright, drawing my eye against my will.

Gayyyyyyy

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.

“You are welcome here. You may still make a good man.” He meant it as comfort.

That is my mother’s lyre, I almost said. The words were in my mouth, and behind them others crowded close. That is my lyre.

When he smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled like a leaf held to flame. He was like a flame himself. He glittered, drew eyes. There was a glamour to him,

He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

And as we swam, or played, or talked, a feeling would come. It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came.

“Good.” Carelessly, as if to herself, she added, “You will be dead soon enough.”

You will be dead soon enough. She had said it coldly, as a fact. She did not wish me for his companion, but I was not worth killing.

“Did she tell you that you would die soon?” I turned to look at him, startled. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Do you want to be a god?” It was easier this time. “Not yet,” he said.

But even here, behind the darkness of my eyelids, I cannot name the thing I hope for.

do. I lean forward and our lips land clumsily on each other. They are like the fat bodies of bees, soft and round and giddy with pollen.

Dear gods, I think, let him not hate me.

“Patroclus.” Pa-tro-clus. I did not move. The knees lifted, and hands reached down to turn me, gently, over. Achilles was looking down at me. “I hoped that you would come,” he said.

“She is a goddess, Achilles, and your mother besides. Do you think so little of her wishes?” “I honor her, Chiron. But she is wrong in this.” His hands were balled so tightly I could see the tendons, even in the low light. “And why is she wrong, Pelides?”

“She feels that—” He faltered a moment, and I almost did not breathe. “That he is a mortal and not a fit companion.” “Do you think he is?” Chiron asked. His voice gave no hint of the answer. “Yes.”

“There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?” “Perhaps,” Achilles admitted. I listened and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

My mother’s lyre. He had brought it with him. “I wish I had known,” I said the first day, when he had showed it to me. “I almost did not come, because I did not want to leave it.” He smiled. “Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.”

I breathed, and was aware of the bare stretch of dark pillow between us. He leaned forward. Our mouths opened under each other, and the warmth of his sweetened throat poured into mine.

He said, “I did not think—” And stopped. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to hear what he had not said. “What?” I asked him. If it is bad, let it be over quickly. “I did not think that we would ever—” He was hesitating over every word, and I could not blame him. “I did not think so either,” I said. “Are you sorry?” The words were quickly out of him, a single breath. “I am not,” I said. “I am not either.”

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

“I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the reason. Swear it.”

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.

“If you have to go, you know I will go with you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said kindly. “His mother has him. She took him last night as he was sleeping. They are gone, no one knows where.”

“No one!” Deidameia had seized Achilles’ arm, was tugging at it. At the same time, Achilles answered coolly, “My husband.”

“What if I will not be silent?” Deidameia’s color was high. “You have ruined me, you and your son. I have lain with him, as you told me to, and my honor is gone. I will claim him now, before the court, as recompense.” I have lain with him.

“I am pregnant,” the princess whispered. I was watching Achilles when she said it, and I saw the horror on his face.

“She said that if I did as she said, she would tell you where I was.”

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

“You were angry that he married me, that he lay with me. You were jealous. You should be.” Her chin lifted, as it used to. “It was not just once.” It was twice. Achilles had told me. She thought that she had power to drive a wedge between us, but she had nothing.

The fading light fell on his legs, revealing a pink scar that seamed the brown flesh of his right calf from ankle to knee. A pink scar.

Odysseus.

“Ask him about his wife,” Diomedes said. “He loves to talk about her. Have you heard how he met her? It’s his favorite story.”

A wedding bed, I said, rather gallantly, of finest holm-oak. But this answer did not please her.