The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

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?

For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?

It was like him to ask this, the thing I had not thought of before.

I should have known better than to call upon the gods.

I do not need to say that my panic swelled, that it became a live thing, slippery and deaf to reason.

This is what all mortals ask first, in disbelief, shock, fear. Is there no exception for me?

This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream. Every day, without him.

This was a frequent fault of his: the more precarious his position, the more unlikable he became.

I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men.

And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.

The crowd shouted its approval—they liked their commanders generous, their heroes bold and lusty.

The prince Achilles spoke of treasure to be won, and where there was greed there was hope.

My mind is filled with cataclysm and apocalypse: I wish for earthquakes, eruptions, flood. Only that seems large enough to hold all of my rage and grief.

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. The men stare as the two pass: it looks, almost, as if Achilles is chasing himself.