Maha Mapara

“The word I use is hubris. Our word for arrogance that scrapes the stars, for violence and towering rage as ugly as the gods.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He was watching me closely, reading my face over and over, like a priest searching the auguries for an answer. I could see the slight line in his forehead that meant utmost concentration.
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 Phtia, blank and unseeing. He had never, not once, looked at me that way.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Have you no more memories?' I am made of memories. The memories come, and come. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“You have killed him and taken your vengeance. It is enough.”
“It will never be enough,” he says.
FOR THE FIRST TIME since my death, he falls into a fitful, trembling sleep.
Achilles. I cannot bear to see you grieving.
His limbs twitch and shudder.
Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles