The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

“I’m sick to death of this tale about your marriage bed.” “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have suggested I tell it.” “And perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom.”

Hhaahahahaaahaah LET ODY LOVE HIS WIFE

“Oh yes,” Odysseus called over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to bring Patroclus along, if you like. We have business with him, as well.”

OH!

“I see nothing but a cuckolded husband and Agamemnon’s greed.”

“The gray-eyed maiden has ever been kind to me,” Odysseus said, almost apologetically. “She knows why I am here; she blesses and guards my purpose.” It was as if I had missed a step of their conversation. I struggled now to follow. The gray-eyed maiden—goddess of war and its arts. She was said to prize cleverness above all.

“What should I do?” he whispered. The slightest tremor, over the still water of her face. “Do not ask me to choose,” she said. And vanished.

Grief swelled inside me, choking me. His death.

You must not go. I almost said it, a thousand times. Instead I held his hands fast between mine; they were cold, and very still.

When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

Achilles was looking at me. “Your hair never quite lies flat here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.”

He stirs and the air stirs with him, bearing the musk-sweet smell of his body. I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?

He will lead you to Troy in glory; he will return home in triumph.” Even there beneath the bright sun, I felt my skin go cold. He will not come home at all. But Peleus did not know this, yet. “He is a man grown, and god born. Aristos Achaion!”

He no longer belongs to me alone.

As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.

True to his word, Achilles had not told him of the prophecy, merely hugged him tightly, as if to soak the old man into his skin. I had embraced him too, those thin, wiry limbs. I thought, This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.

I already know im gonna sob uncontrollably

I watched Achilles closely, waiting to see if Thetis would again make his hair brighter or his muscles bigger. If she did, I did not notice; all the grace I saw then was his own: simple, unadorned, glorious.

No one had seen Diomedes move, but his hand was on her now, huge against her slender collarbone, bearing her down to the stone surface. She was too shocked to struggle, to know even what was happening. Agamemnon yanked something from his belt. It flashed in the sun as he swung it. The knife’s edge fell onto her throat, and blood spurted over the altar, spilled down her dress.

Blood slicked Agamemnon’s hands. He spoke into the silence: “The goddess is appeased.”

Ho. Ly. Shit.

Wind. The wind has come. Jaws unclenched, and muscles loosened. The goddess is appeased.

“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”

did not see Achilles move, but I heard it: the whistle of air, and his soft exhalation. The spear was out of his hand and flying across the water that separated our deck from the beach.

The news flared along the line of Greek ships, in either direction: first blood was ours, spilt by the god-like prince of Phthia.

“Menelaus and I will take the center, of course.”

“To my brother’s left will be the prince of Phthia. And to my right, Odysseus. The wings will be Diomedes and Ajax.” All of these were the most dangerous positions, the places where the enemy would seek to flank or punch through. They were therefore the most important to hold at all costs, and the most prestigious.

I watched him strap these things on, one by one, saw the stiff leather dig into his soft flesh, skin that only last night I had traced with my finger. My hand twitched towards him, longing to pull open the tight buckles, to release him. But I did not. The men were waiting.

He leaned towards me, framed by bronze, smelling of sweat and leather and metal. I closed my eyes, felt his lips on mine, the only part of him still soft. Then he was gone.

First allotment went usually to the army’s best soldier, but Agamemnon named himself first and Achilles second. I was surprised that Achilles only shrugged. “Everyone knows I am better. This only makes Agamemnon look greedy.” He was right, of course.

I saw the fear in her eyes, of rape and worse. I could not bear it. There was only one thing I could think of. I turned to Achilles and seized the front of his tunic. I kissed him. When I let go again, she was staring at us. Staring and staring.

our stories had many characters. Great Perseus or modest Peleus. Heracles or almost-forgotten Hylas. Some had a whole epic, others just a verse.

That night i could not stop thinking of it: Briseis’ and my child.

Yet there was an emptiness to the scene, an ache of absence. Where was Achilles? Dead? Or had he never existed?

There were such wolves on Pelion, who would hunt men if they were hungry enough. “If one of them is stalking you,” Chiron said, “you must give it something it wants more than you.” There is only one thing that Agamemnon wants more than Briseis. I yank the knife from my belt. I have never liked blood, but there is no help for that, now.

“He let you take her. He knows you will not resist bedding her, and this will be your downfall. She is his, won through fair service. The men will turn on you if you violate her, and the gods as well.”

There is nothing that could cause Achilles greater anguish than this: being betrayed to his worst enemy by the man he holds closest to his heart.

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.

It 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.

He would be hated now. No one would remember his glory, or his honesty, or his beauty; all his gold would be turned to ashes and ruin.

“Anything else,” he said. “Anything. But not this. I cannot.” I looked at the stone of his beautiful face, and despaired. “If you love me—” “No!” His face was stiff with tension. “I cannot!

He kissed me, catching me up in a soft, opened warmth that breathed sweetness into my throat. Then he took my hand and we went outside to the Myrmidons.

I have killed a son of Zeus, but it is not enough. They must think it is Achilles who has done

Patroclus. A voice like music, above me. I look up to see a man leaning on the walls as if sunning, dark hair to his shoulders, a quiver and bow slung casually around his torso. Startled, I slip a little, my knees scraping the rock. He is piercingly beautiful, smooth skin and a finely cut face that glows with something more than human. Black eyes. Apollo.

Hip bones like the cornice of a temple, his brow furrowed and stern. He does not look at the men who surround him; he walks as if he were alone on the battlefield. He is coming to kill me. Hector.

My head drops back against the ground, and the last image I see is of Hector, leaning seriously over me, twisting his spear inside me as if he is stirring a pot. The last thing I think is: Achilles.

fierce red rage comes, and he almost kills him there. But he would have to let go of me. He cannot. He holds me so tightly I can feel the faint beat of his chest, like the wings of a moth. An echo, the last bit of spirit still tethered to my body. A torment.

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.

Briseis does not flinch. “Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was worth ten of you. Ten! And you sent him to his death!” The sound that comes from him is hardly human. “I tried to stop him! I told him not to leave the beach!” “You are the one who made him go.” Briseis steps towards him. “He fought to save you, and your darling reputation. Because he could not bear to see you suffer!”

No one calls it cowardice that he runs. He will not live if he is caught. He is wearing Achilles’ own armor, the unmistakable phoenix breastplate taken from beside my corpse.

He is dragging Hector’s body behind him, pierced through its heels with a leather thong. The neat beard is matted with dirt, the face black with bloody dust. He has been pulling it behind his chariot as the horses run.

am done. There is no more I can do to save you.” Her black eyes seem to contract, like dying stars. “I am glad that he is dead,” she says. It is the last thing she will ever say to him.

There, at last, is his heart. Blood spills between shoulder blades, dark and slick as oil. Achilles smiles as his face strikes the earth.