The Song of Achilles

“The boy’s family demanded immediate exile or death. They were powerful, and this was their eldest son. They might permit a king to burn their fields, or rape their daughters, as long as payment was made. But you did not touch a man’s son. For this, the nobles would riot. We all knew the rules; we clung to them to avoid the anarchy that was always a hair’s breadth away.” 

Patroclus refers to his exile for accidentally murdering a nobleman’s son, noting the different treatment of men and women. Women were often classed along with property; thus, monetary payment could compensate for harm to a woman. To harm one’s son, however, was to threaten the continuation of a family line. 

His fingers touched the strings, and all my thoughts were displaced. The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons. It was like no music I had ever heard before. It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once. A few hairs slipped forward to hang over his eyes as he played. They were fine as lyre-strings themselves, and shone.” 

Patroclus describes his childhood experience of listening to Achilles play the lyre. Significantly, Miller’s description focuses on the beauty that Achilles’s hands produce with the instrument. Later, Achilles’s hands will wield a spear and wreak death and destruction on the Trojans. Throughout the text, Patroclus emphasizes the sublime skill of Achilles’s hands. For Patroclus, this sublime capacity enables even destruction to appear beautiful.

“But in all those years, Achilles showed no special interest in any of the boys, though he was polite to all, as befitted his upbringing. And now he had bestowed the long-awaited honor upon the most unlikely of us, small and ungrateful and probably cursed.” 

Achilles has asked his father, Peleus, for Patroclus to become Achilles’s “[t]herapon,” his companion, “brother-in-arms sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love” (35). The request seems peculiar because Patroclus “is an exile with a stain upon him” and, as such, “will add no luster to [Achilles’s] reputation” (35).

As an exceptionally skilled child whose mother is a goddess, Achilles would be expected to take a companion who will bring him additional glory, yet he chooses Patroclus. Achilles’s choice reveals an important aspect of his character. His tremendous confidence in his own skill translates into Achilles feeling that he does not need to choose a companion strategically. On the positive side, this enables him to see Patroclus as a human being rather than a pawn in Achilles’s pursuit of glory. On the negative side, Achilles’s extreme confidence can veer into fatal arrogance. This happens at Troy, when Achilles’s refusal to yield results in destruction for the Greek forces.

“I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind any more, that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.” 

At the beginning of their friendship, Patroclus envies Achilles. He envies that Peleus sees Achilles as the ideal son while Patroclus’s own father disdains him. He envies Achilles’s musical and warrior skills. He envies that Achilles is respected and admired while Patroclus is mocked and avoided. No matter what he does, Patroclus cannot beat Achilles in physical pursuits. Eventually, this frees Patroclus to enjoy the beauty of Achilles’s gifts without feeling that he needs to compete with them, something Agamemnon is never able to do. While training with Chiron and later at Troy, Patroclus develops his own unique gifts at healing and community building.

“‘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?’” 

This passage foreshadows events at the end of the novel while highlighting the capricious nature of the ancient Greek gods. Chiron tells Patroclus and Achilles the myth of Heracles’s god-inspired madness and subsequent murder of his wife and children. Achilles remarks that it was not Heracles but his wife and children who were more severely punished, but Chiron challenges him, noting that surviving the loss of one’s loved ones may be worse than dying oneself. Achilles eventually learns the truth of this after Patroclus is killed in battle while impersonating Achilles.

“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.” 

Achilles has asked Patroclus to name one hero who was happy. In ancient Greek myth, heroes were children or descendants of gods, endowed with extraordinary skills. They achieved glory (and occasionally immortality) through their accomplishments. As Patroclus cycles through notable heroes from ancient Greek myths, he cannot think of a single hero who achieved both greatness and happiness. Achilles notes that the gods “never let you be famous and happy” (98). Achilles vows to be the one exception, because of Patroclus; however, he is eventually forced to choose between achieving fame by fighting at Troy or living a long but unremarkable life. Achilles chooses glory over a long, happy, but unremarkable life, in the process ensuring his and Patroclus’s deaths. 

“A sort of pity rose in me, cooling the heat of my cheeks. I remembered how hard a thing indifference was to bear.” 

Patroclus and Achilles’s joyful reunion in Scyros prompts intense jealousy in Deidameia. Devastated by Achilles’s indifference, she has Patroclus brought to her rooms to abuse him, verbally and physically. Instead of becoming enraged by her abuse, Patroclus feels empathy for her because he recalls his father’s indifference. Seeing himself in Deidameia enables Patroclus to have compassion for her even when she is trying to hurt him. Patroclus’s father cared only for the glory his son could potentially bring him. Believing that Patroclus would not do so, his father discarded him. Similarly, Thetis and Achilles use Deidameia to produce an heir, then discard her. 

“What is more heroic than to fight for the honor of the most beautiful woman in the world, against the mightiest city of the east? Perseus cannot say he did so much; nor Jason. Heracles would kill his wife again for a chance to come along. We will master Anatolia all the way to Araby. We will carve ourselves into stories for ages to come.” 

Odysseus uses his cunning to persuade Achilles to join the war effort by exploiting Achilles’s desire for glory. He evokes heroes—Perseus, Jason, and Heracles—immortalized through their achievements. By suggesting that even they, with their grand achievements, will pale in relation to the Trojan war’s heroes, Odysseus means to guarantee for Achilles the eternal glory he seeks. Fighting for a woman’s honor may not appeal to Achilles, who notes that “[t]here will be other wars,” but the idea that participating in this war will be his only chance ultimately convinces him (155).

“‘I do not think I could bear it,’ he said, at last. His eyes were closed, as if against horrors. I knew he spoke not of his death, but of the nightmare Odysseus had spun, the loss of his brilliance, the withering of his grace. I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface. Who was he if not miraculous, and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame?” 

Achilles and Patroclus discuss Odysseus’s warning that fighting at Troy will be Achilles’s one chance at glory. Earlier, Achilles had been determined to be heroic and happy, but it becomes increasingly clear that his priority is achieving the status of hero in human memory, through poetic song. Pursuit of glory, skill as a warrior, and the belief that though his body will die his fame will render him immortal define Achilles to himself. To abandon these would be to lose his sense of self. Patroclus recognizes this and tells Achilles, “I would not care,” but Achilles already knows this (158). It is not Patroclus’s love that Achilles fears losing but rather achieving immortality through song. 

“Yet this beautiful spear had been fashioned not in bitterness, but love. Its shape would fit no one’s hand but Achilles’s, and its heft could suit no one’s strength but his. And though the point was keen and deadly, the wood itself slipped under our fingers like the slender oiled strut of a lyre.”

After Achilles commits to fighting in the Trojan war, Chiron sends him a spear, prompting Patroclus to wonder if Chiron knew from the beginning what Achilles’s choice would be. Though it is a weapon, the spear is also a thing of beauty, both for its craftsmanship and for how perfectly suited it is for Achilles. Comparing it to a lyre references the beauty that Achilles creates with his hands, whether his instrument is for war or music. In addition, it is an example of a Homeric simile.

“‘I am Achilles, son of Peleus, god-born, best of the Greeks,’ he said. ‘I have come to bring you victory.’ A second of startled silence, then the men roared their approval. Pride became us—heroes were never modest.” 

When he first arrives at Troy, Achilles introduces himself to Agamemnon, who expects Achilles to kneel and make an oath of loyalty. Instead, Achilles announces himself as the “best of the Greeks” (183), a direct challenge to Agamemnon’s authority. The tension between Achilles and Agamemnon will eventually simmer to a boil. Their conflict will lead to the fulfillment of the prophecies that the best of the Myrmidons (Patroclus) will die, leading Achilles to seek vengeance, in the process (and paradoxically) both dying and being immortalized through his actions at Troy. The story’s tragedy is that the very quality the heroes prize so highly is the very one that leads to their downfall.

“If you are truly his friend you will help him leave this soft heart behind. He’s going to Troy to kill men, not rescue them.’ 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.” 

Odysseus advises Patroclus, who has accused the Greek leaders of dishonoring Achilles by involving him in their ruse to sacrifice Iphigenia. Odysseus recognizes that Patroclus struggles to accept Achilles’s warrior nature, a conflict that will continue throughout the book. Though Patroclus wants to support Achilles in his pursuit of glory, the reality of what it requires horrifies him. He values Achilles’s “tender heart” and does not want to participate in extinguishing that side of his lover (195). At the same time, Achilles must learn to be a killing machine if he is to achieve his goal of immortal glory.

“Later, I would see those walls up close, their sharp squared stones perfectly cut and fitted against each other, the work of the god Apollo, it was said. And I would wonder at them—at how, ever, the city could be taken. For they were too high for siege towers, and too strong for catapults, and no sane person would ever try to climb their sheer, divinely smoothed face.”

In Greek mythology, the god Apollo was said to have crafted Troy’s defensive walls, making them impossible to breach. Miller here draws on this myth to foreshadow a key event later in the novel: Patroclus losing himself while impersonating Achilles.

At this point, the Greeks have defeated the Trojans in their first battle, and Patroclus and Achilles have toured the newly established camp. Seeing the citadel in the distance, Patroclus enumerates its virtues, reflecting that “no sane person” (206) would attempt to scale it. In Chapter 30, Patroclus attempts to do exactly that, demonstrating that he is in the grip of battle-inspired bloodlust.

“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 on to the vase of posterity. To release him from it, and make him Achilles again.” 

As the war drags on, Patroclus stops joining Achilles in battle, instead applying his medical skill in the infirmary. His gift is as a healer, and in this passage, he expresses his desire to extend his healing skills in an emotional context. For Patroclus, listening to Achilles’s battle stories is the first step in preserving those experiences for posterity, thus deifying Achilles through eternal memory. The “vase of posterity” (212) is here both literal and metaphoric. One way that myths have been preserved is by being painted on pottery, the implication being that Achilles’s deeds will likewise be preserved. By participating in the process of immortalizing Achilles, Patroclus hopes to free the man he loves from his anxiety about achieving that immortality. 

“It turned out that she did know a little Greek. A few words, that her father had picked up and taught her when he heard the army was coming. Mercy was one. Yes, and please and what do you want? A father, teaching his daughter how to be a slave.” 

Patroclus describes Briseis, a woman captured during a raid and enslaved. Recognizing that they would be unable to capture Troy by breaching its defensive walls, the Greek forces raid surrounding farming communities that provide Troy with vital resources. The Greek’s strategy is to choke off the city from its food supply while simultaneously sending refugee raid survivors into the city, causing overpopulation and further strain on limited resources. Miller focuses here on the innocent victims of the Greeks’ war games, both women and farmers. Realizing that they will not be able to win, they must learn how to survive.

“He was a marvel, shaft after shaft flying from him, spears that he wrenched easily from broken bodies on the ground to toss at new targets. Again and again I saw his wrist twist, exposing its pale underside, those flute-like bones thrusting elegantly forward. My spear sagged forgotten to the ground as I watched. I could not even see the ugliness of the deaths any more, the brains, the shattered bones that later I would wash from my skin and hair. All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.” 

In contrast with Achilles—who goes into battle “giddily, grinning as he fought” and “glor[ying] in his own strength”—Patroclus cannot bring himself to fight and kill (228). When Patroclus is compelled to enter battle, Achilles creates a protective circle around him, preventing his lover from having to engage and providing him an opportunity to observe Achilles in his element. Patroclus cannot help but marvel at Achilles’s skill and recognize that Achilles is doing what he was meant to do. From his childhood experiences, Patroclus understands the pain of enduring others’ disappointment with one’s true self. He cannot bring himself to judge Achilles for being who and what he is.

“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-calloused but beautiful still. No hands had ever been so gentle, nor so deadly.”

This moment explicitly identifies the paradox of Achilles as Patroclus sees him. Achilles has told Patroclus about the raid of Cilicia, and Patroclus must confront that his lover is a killer who has wrought destruction and despair with his hands. At the same time, Patroclus sees Achilles’s hands as beautiful because he sees their dual nature. These same hands are those of a lover and a musician. One truth does not negate the other; they coexist in an uneasy union.

“It moved me to see how much they trusted me, turned hopeful faces towards me for comfort; I grew to like them, no matter how difficult they were in council. […] I developed a reputation, a standing in the camp. I was asked for, known for my quick hands and how little pain I caused. […] I began to surprise Achilles, calling out to these men as we walked through the camp. I was always gratified at how they would raise a hand in return, point to a scar that had healed over well.” 

Patroclus neither wants nor is suited to be a warrior. As the war drags on, he spends less time on the battlefield and more in the infirmary, where his patience, empathy, and skill best serve the army. Tending to the wounded cultivates a reciprocal respect and camaraderie between Patroclus and the disparate Greek soldiers. While Achilles achieves success through destruction, Patroclus does so through healing, the skill he studied under Chiron. While Achilles is inward-focused, fretting about achieving his goal for glory, Patroclus is outward-directed, building community and connection. Their distinct orientations collide in the final chapters of the book.

“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?’” 

Patroclus struggles to reconcile his love for Achilles with his affection for the soldiers to whom he feels connected. Achilles’s refusal to fight with the Greek army has led to the Trojans routing them in battle. Though distressed by the deaths of the soldiers who he has previously healed, Patroclus also understands what Achilles’s honor means to him. Achilles will not have the long, happy life with Patroclus that both long for, and achieving immortality is Achilles’s only consolation. Patroclus cannot bring himself to take that away from his lover.

At the same time, he recognizes that his feelings are personal, not moral. He recalls Chiron telling him and Achilles that “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from” (283), provoking him and Achilles to reflect on the implications of this notion of equality. Achilles had asked Chiron whether a man should treat his friend and brother the same way as he would a stranger, and Chiron responded that one man’s stranger was another man’s friend or brother. Patroclus concludes that there is no right answer to Chiron’s question.

“The rest of us are forced to wait for your leisure. You are holding us here, Achilles. You were given a choice and you chose. You must live by it now.” 

Odysseus appeals to Achilles to return to battle. By coming to Troy, Achilles tacitly agreed to take the path to a short but glorious life. He exchanged a long life for eternal memory. Refusing to fight is refusing to accept the terms of his bargain. Odysseus points out that, in the process, Achilles is also harming the Greek soldiers who depend on him to survive. 

Somehow I am quick enough, and it passes over me, ruffling my hair like a lover’s breath.” 

This is an example of Miller using a Homeric simile. Patroclus, wearing Achilles’s armor, has ducked to avoid a spear, which passes over his head as gently as “a lover’s breath” (317). Comparing the spear’s effect to that of “a lover’s breath” conflates brutality and gentleness, seemingly incongruous elements. This mirrors the way Patroclus conflates those qualities in Achilles, as when he notes that Achilles’s hands are both murderous and tender. 

“It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.”34

After Achilles has killed Hector and defiled his corpse by repeatedly dragging it through the dirt, Hector’s father, Priam, sneaks into the Greek camp and appeals to Achilles. Priam wants Hector’s body so that he can give it a proper burial, essential for a peaceful afterlife. Though he is facing his son’s killer, Priam can feel empathy for Achilles, as both have suffered devastating losses—Achilles his lover and Priam his son. Both know the pain of being left behind, a condition foreshadowed in the book through the narration of the myth of Heracles.  

“Paris aims. The god touches his finger to the arrow’s fletching. Then he breathes, a puff of air—as if to send dandelions flying, to push toy boats over water. And the arrow flies, straight and silent, in a curving, downward arc towards Achilles’s back.” 

Miller here uses a Homeric simile. “The god” is Apollo, who guides Paris’s arrow into Achilles’s back. The similes of dandelions and toy boats highlight the way gods are portrayed in the Homeric text. They view humans as playthings who they can manipulate as effortlessly as children at play. This characterization is also reflected in Chiron telling Patroclus and Achilles the story of Heracles and pointing out that the gods do not have to be fair.