The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

throne, a cunning toy horse I loved,

But gods were known to be notoriously poor parents;

Not men, I corrected myself. Kings.

“I find the folly of men amusing.”

His presence was like a stone in my shoe, impossible to ignore.

“Yes. But it is not his fault. I forgot to say I wished him for a companion.” Therapon was the word he used. A brother-in-arms sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love. In war, these men were his honor guard; in peace, his closest advisers. It was a place of highest esteem, another reason the boys swarmed Peleus’ son, showing off; they hoped to be chosen.

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?

As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.

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. I did not have to worry that I was too slender or too slow. This and this and this!

It was not murder that had exiled me, it was my lack of cunning.

Gods and mortals never mixed happily in our stories.

A god. I could not imagine him so. Gods were cold and distant, far off as the moon, nothing like his bright eyes, the warm mischief of his smiles.

“She wants you to be a god,” I told him. “I know.” His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.

Son of a goddess. What had I thought would happen?

As I ran, I promised myself that if I ever saw him again, I would keep my thoughts behind my eyes.

How had we thought we were grown?

“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 think?” “Perhaps,” Achilles admitted.

Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

She was a sea-nymph, and the things of earth did not love her.

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

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 feel like I could eat the world raw.”

Later, Achilles pressed close for a final, drowsy whisper. “If you have to go, you know I will go with you.” We slept.

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.

I cowered, as men were made to do.

I watched him hang on the other man’s words. He is too trusting. But I would not be the raven on his shoulder all the time, predicting gloom.

poe reference or just raven symbolism

I did not plan to live after he was gone.

Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.

And though the point was keen and deadly, the wood itself slipped under our fingers like the slender oiled strut of a lyre.

the visible power of Greece Offended.

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

Some had a whole epic, others just a verse.

UGH FAVE

She is afraid, but does not draw back. “I hope that Hector kills you.” The breath rasps in his throat. “Do you think I do not hope the same?” he asks.