The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

My mother hugged it. She did not seem to notice a change had been made.

There was humiliation here that my father did not seem to understand. My face flushed with 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.

Even as a child I felt it, and I marveled at the power of this woman who, though veiled, could electrify a room.

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.

HUUUHH

Thetis nothing could ever eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.

That is what a prince should be.

The voices of the dead were said to have the power to make the living mad. I must not hear him speak.

I was easy to ignore. It was not so very different from home, really.

I would wake, choking on my horror, and stare at the darkness until dawn.

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.

His gaze, which had been following the circling fruit, flickered to mine. I did not have time to look away before he said, softly but distinctly, “Catch.”

My chest trilled with something I could not quite name. Escape, and danger, and hope all at once.

As I sat, I met his eyes, quickly, almost guiltily, then looked away. My face was flushing, I was sure.

A tightness I had not known was there eased a little. I would not lose him yet.

I tried to look tormented. But all I felt was the coolness against my ankle, where his fingers had been, a moment before.

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.

And last, I passed him the statue. He examined it, his fingertips moving over the small marks my knife had left behind. “It’s you,” I said, grinning foolishly. He looked up, and there was bright pleasure in his eyes. “I know,” he said.

UGHHHHHH

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

But then he was awake, his lips forming a half-sleepy greeting, and his hand was already reaching for mine. We lay there, like that, until the cave was bright with morning, and Chiron called.

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’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.” “I swear it,” I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. “I swear it,” he echoed.

“Father, I do not see a place for Patroclus.” My blush went even deeper. “Achilles,” I began in a whisper. It does not matter, I wanted to say. I will sit with the men; it is all right. But he ignored me.

“She’ll hate me now,” I said. “She already hates you,” he answered, with a flash of smile.

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence. Later, Achilles pressed close for a final, drowsy whisper. “If you have to go, you know I will go with you.” We slept.

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.

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

His eyes, green as spring leaves, met mine. “Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this.” After that, there was nothing more to say.

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.”

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 no longer belongs to me alone.

began to slip away. I would find a reason to linger behind as the attendants ushered him forward: an itch, or a loose strap of my shoe. Oblivious, they hurried on, turned a corner, and left me suddenly, blessedly, alone.

Knowing that he had asked warmed me—it chased away some of the coldness of the days here in the palace, when he was wanted every moment and I was not.

did not plan to live after he was gone.

From Chiron, Peleus said, handing it to his son.

STOP THIS IS SO SWEET WTF ;-;

As he lay alone in his rose-colored cave, had some glimmer of prophecy come to him? Perhaps he simply assumed:

:(

Yet this beautiful spear had been fashioned not in bitterness, but love. Its shape would fit no one’s hand but Achilles’, and its heft could suit no one’s strength but his.

im sobbing

I thought, This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.

FUCK YOU.

first blood was ours, spilt by the god-like prince of Phthia.

I closed my eyes, felt his lips on mine, the only part of him still soft. Then he was gone.