The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

At that moment she was worth all the prizes in the center of the hall, and more. She was worth our lives.

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

sometimes there was mutual satisfaction and even affection. At least that is what the men who spoke of them believed.

"believed"

He smiled. “Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.”

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

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.

It was easy, in those moments, to forget that the war had not yet really begun.

“I will be there,” he promised me.

“What has Hector ever done to me?”

:(

“Why?” I bristled at the thought of her fretting over him; that was mine to do.

I forced my voice to match his in lightness. “I’m sure you’re right. After all, Hector hasn’t done anything to you.” He smiled then, as I had hoped he would. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard that.”

I really hope she changes the illead bc how dare you make me this sad

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.

“You have made a fair run of blocking fate’s path. But you cannot do it forever. The gods will not let you.” He pauses, to let us hear each word of what he says. “The thread will run smooth, whether you choose it or not. I tell you as a friend, it is better to seek it on your own terms, to make it go at your pace, than theirs.”

There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.

The audacity

The last thing I think is: Achilles.

“Go,” she says. “He waits for you.”

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.