The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

I turned to face the centaur. “I will leave, if there will be trouble.” There was a long silence, and I almost thought he had not heard me. At last, he said: “Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.”

I would be horrified to find Chiron upset with me. Disapproval had always burrowed deep in me; I could not shake it off as Achilles did.

It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.

His dark eyes held me like swift-running current. “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.”

The very thought of it seemed to anger him, and his voice grew rougher. This was a frequent fault of his: the more precarious his position, the more unlikable he became.

I felt sorry for other kings who had to fight for their authority or wore it poorly, their gestures jagged and rough. With Achilles it was graceful as a blessing, and the men lifted their faces to it, as they would to a priest.

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.

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

“We cannot say. We are men only, a brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please.