The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

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 loved this about him. No matter how many times I had asked, he answered me as if it were the first time.

“Name one hero who was happy.” I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. “You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. “I can’t.” “I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “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.

omg crying!!

If I stayed still enough, perhaps we would not have to go.

At the front of the room was a dais, raised. This is where Peleus would sit, beside his son and wife. Three places. My cheeks went red. What had I expected? Even amidst the noise of the preparations Achilles’ voice seemed loud. “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. “Patroclus is my sworn companion. His place is beside me.”

achilles's bravery and devotion :') >>>

The scar that wrapped his calf, pink as gums.

The fire popped again, spitting out its sap.

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.

ooooooof so freaking good!!

“If you have to go, you know I will go with you.”

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

“Who is this man, Pyrrha?” “No one!” Deidameia had seized Achilles’ arm, was tugging at it. At the same time, Achilles answered coolly, “My husband.”

UM!!!!!!!!

“Please, wait. Please, let me explain. I did not want to do it. My mother—” He was breathless, almost panting. I had never seen him so upset. “She led the girl to my room. She made me. I did not want to. My mother said—she said—” He was stumbling over his words. “She said that if I did as she said, she would tell you where I was.”

damn! this pains me

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.

Something shifted in me then, like the frozen surface of the Apidanos in spring. I had seen the way he looked at Deidameia; or rather the way he did not. It was the same way he had looked at the boys in Phthia, blank and unseeing. He had never, not once, looked at me that way.

I remembered how hard a thing indifference was to bear.

She was shivering, like something just born.

I cowered, as men were made to do.

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

“Will you come with me?” he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. “Yes,” I whispered. “

A marriage for love, rare as cedars from the East. It almost made me want to like him. But I had seen his smiles too often now.

“Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this.”

okay fuck me i guess *sobs*

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.” My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. “You haven’t,” I said. “I should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. “What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?” “No,” I said. “This surely, then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. “Have I told you of this?” “That you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke. “And what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. “Have I spoken of it?” “You have.” “And this? Surely, I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. “Tell me I did not.” “You did not.” “There is this, too.” His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.” I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,” I said.

ugh the way their love is written makes me so genuinely emotional :')

he had light enough to make heroes of them all.

You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”

I nodded and followed him into the cool of the tent, past the heavy cloth door that fell closed like a lamp blown out.

I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements 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.

oof this hurts me

It was a measure of my dullness, my dizziness, that it took me until midafternoon to see that this was Achilles’ doing. His gaze was on me always, preternaturally sensing the moment when a soldier’s eyes widened at the easy target I presented. Before the man drew another breath, he would cut him down.

this hurts me!

He gloried in his own strength, like a racehorse too long penned, allowed at last to run.

But from time to time he would grow sick of the solitude and beg me to join him, to strap on the leather stiffened with sweat and blood and clamber over bodies with him. To bear witness to his miracles.

“I thought that he was—something. He does not—” She paused. “He does not move like a human.” I smiled then. “What does a human move like?” “Like you,” she said. “Clumsy, then.” She did not know the word. I demonstrated, thinking to make her laugh. But she shook her head, vehemently. “No. You are not like that. That is not what I meant.” I never heard what she meant, for at that moment Achilles crested the hill.

what is being foreshadowed here ???

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

It was a strange time. Over us, every second, hung the terror of Achilles’ destiny, while the murmurs of war among the gods grew louder. But even I could not fill each minute with fear. 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.

I knew he killed men every day; he came home wet with their blood, stains he scrubbed from his skin before dinner. But there were moments, like now, when that knowledge overwhelmed me. When I would think of all the tears that he had made fall, in all the years that had passed. And now Andromache, too, and Hector grieved because of him. He seemed to sit across the world from me then, though he was so close I could feel the warmth rising from his skin. His hands were in his lap, spear-callused but beautiful still. No hands had ever been so gentle, or so deadly.

Overhead, the stars were veiled. I could feel the air’s heaviness. There would be a storm tonight. The rain would be soaking, filling up the earth till she burst her seams. It would gush down from the mountaintops, gathering strength to sweep away what stood in its path: animals and houses and men. He is such a flood, I thought.

Our limbs slid against one another, on paths that we had traced so many times before, yet still were not old.

For three weeks the earth would paint herself in every color, burst every bud, unfurl each rioting petal. Then, the wild flush of her excitement spent, she would settle down to the steady work of summer.

I had never been angry with him before; I did not know how.

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. I want the world overturned like a bowl of eggs, smashed at my feet.

I watch him leave. My stomach feels burned to cinders; my palms ache where my nails have cut into them. I do not know this man, I think. He is no one I have ever seen before. My rage towards him is hot as blood. I will never forgive him. I imagine tearing down our tent, smashing the lyre, stabbing myself in the stomach and bleeding to death. I want to see his face broken with grief and regret. I want to shatter the cold mask of stone that has slipped down over the boy I knew.

There is only one thing that Agamemnon wants more than Briseis. I yank the knife from my belt. I have never liked blood, but there is no help for that, now.

omg is our baby taking her place as a hostage ?!?!

“Her safety for my honor. Are you happy with your trade?” “There is no honor in betraying your friends.”

oof!

“My life is my reputation,” he says. His breath sounds ragged. “It is all I have. I will not live much longer. Memory is all I can hope for.” He swallows, thickly. “You know this. And would you let Agamemnon destroy it? Would you help him take it from me?” “I would not,” I say. “But I would have the memory be worthy of the man. I would have you be yourself, not some tyrant remembered for his cruelty. There are other ways to make Agamemnon pay. We will do it. I will help you, I swear. But not like this. No fame is worth what you did today.”

and i have never loved you more than for this

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 were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say.

It feels like a held breath, like an eagle poised before the dive.

The funeral pyres burn through the night, their greasy smoke smeared across the moon. I try not to think how every one is a man I know. Knew.

They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.

“Bring him back to me,”

He holds me so tightly I can feel the faint beat of his chest, like the wings of a moth. An echo, the last bit of spirit still tethered to my body. A torment.