The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

But gods were known to be notoriously poor parents; it was expected that Tyndareus would offer patrimony to all.

There was violence in that room, with so many princes and heroes and kings competing for a single prize, but we knew how to ape civilization.

would have no parents, no family name, no inheritance. In our day,

Peleus acknowledged this. “Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?” “I will tell them nothing.” The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. “It is not for them to say what I will do.”

I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion’s tail hidden in his words. 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?

This feeling was different. I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This and this and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much.

stared at him, stunned by the simplicity of it. I could have lied. And then the revelation that followed: if I had lied, I would still be a prince. It was not murder that had exiled me, it was my lack of cunning. I understood, now, the disgust in my father’s eyes. His moron son, confessing all. I recalled how his jaw had hardened as I spoke. He does not deserve to be a king.

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.”

Chiron liked to teach, not in set lessons, but in opportunities. When the goats that wandered the ridges took ill, we learned how to mix purgatives for their bad stomachs, and when they were well again, how to make a poultice that repelled their ticks.

“There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you

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

I did not have to go with him as often as I had feared. The longer the war dragged on, the less it seemed important to roust every Greek from his tent. I was not a prince, with honor at stake. I was not a soldier, bound to obedience, or a hero whose skill would be missed. I was an exile, a man with no status or rank. If Achilles saw fit to leave me behind, that was his business alone.

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

The faces around our hearth began to dwindle, as one woman after another quietly took a Myrmidon for her lover, and then husband. They no longer needed our fire; they had their own. We were glad.

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

“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”