ari’s Reviews > The Iliad > Status Update

— Antilochus, crying, makes it back to Achilles who is already preparing to hear of Patroclus death given the sight of the Greeks rushing back
— “With both hands he scooped up fistfuls of soot and dust and poured it on his head and rubbed the dirt across his handsome face. Black ashes settled on his scented tunic. He stretched his whole long body in the dust and lay there. With both hands, he tore his hair. (…) Antilochus was sobbing, shedding tears, and holding tightly to Achilles’ hands so that he could not use an iron knife to slit his throat.”
— Thetis hears Achilles howling with agony and mourns with the rest of the Nerieds in the sea. “How I have suffered! What disastrous luck! Cursed with the best of sons, I bore a child who shop up like a sapling and became the strongest and the best of warriors. I raised him like a young tree in an orchard, then sent him in the curving ships to Troy to fight the Trojans. But now I will never welcome him home again inside the house of Peleus. And while he sees the sun, while he is still alive, he is in pain. I can do nothing for him, even if I go to him. But I will go see him, because he is my child and I love him.” T_T
— “Yes, Mother, Zeus has granted me that prayer. But now what good to me is any of it? My friend Patroclus, whom I loved, is dead. I loved him more than any other comrade. I loved him like my head, my life, myself. I lost him, killed him. (…) If only you had stayed among the deathless goddesses under the sea, and Peleus had taken a mortal woman as his wife! Your marriage brought never-endings borrow to your heart for your dead child, whom you will never welcome home again now, because my heart forbids me to live or be with people anymore, unless my spear can strike down Hector first and take his life away and make him pay because he killed and looted my Patroclus, son of Menoetius.”
Thetis answered him, with tears still pouring down her cheeks, “My child, what have you said? How fast your fate runs out! As soon as you kill Hector, you must die.”
Swift-footed Lord Achilles, in despair, told her, “I want to die right here and now, because I could not save my slaughtered friend. He died so very far from home. He needed me to help him and protect him. And I didn’t go back to my dear country, nor did I save Patroclus. I provided no light or help to him or anybody. Many were overpowered by glorious Hector, while I sat here beside the ships, so useless, a burden on the earth, although I am superior to all the bronze- clad Greeks in war, though others may be better speakers. If only conflict were eliminated from gods and human beings! I wish anger did not exist. Even the wisest people are roused to rage, which trickles into you sweeter than honey, and inside your body it swells like smoke—just so, Lord Agamemnon enraged me. (…) I must control the feelings in my chest, and go look for Hector, who destroyed the one I loved the most, my head, my life. Thereafter, I will welcome death, whenever Zeus and the other deathless gods may wish to bring it. (…) If I am doomed to die, so be it. I will lie dead, but let me win great glory. (..) Let them know how long I was gone from war. And, mother, do not hold me back from battle, despite your love for me. You will not stop me.”
— Thetis asks Achilles to wait a day so she can return to him new armour made by Hephaestus since Hector now wears his. Hera then sends Iris in secret to talk to Achilles, “The Greeks are fighting to protect the corpse, the Trojans want to drag the body back to windy Troy, and glorious Hector strives with all his might to pull away the dead man. He yearns to slice his head from his soft neck and fix it on a stake. Stop lying there! Shame on you, if you let the dogs of Troy play with Patroclus like a toy. the fault is yours, if his dead body is despoiled.” Achilles asks how he is supposed to do that since he is still waiting on Thetis, and Iris says he should simply show himself to terrify the Trojans and give the Greeks some breathing room. He does so without joining the battle, letting out a frighteningly loud war cry, lit up by Athena, that sends the Trojans reeling
— Polydamas says they are doomed in battle against Achilles come morning if they stay on the battlefield and that they should retreat back to the city for now. Hector once again does not listen, “I will not run away from painful warfare. I will not stand here and meet him face to face. He may achieve great victory, or I will. Ares is with us all, and kills the killer.” So Hector spoke. The trojans cheered approval. Poor fools! Athena took their wits away. All of them praised the bad ideas of Hector, and not the good plan of Polydamas.
— He laid his murderous hands on his friend’s chest and howled and roared—just like a thick-maned lion, whose cubs a man, a deer hunter, has taken out of their forest home—the lion comes too late, and in his desperate grief he tracks the footprints of the man and tries to find him, possessed by agonizing rage—just so Achilles roared with grief and rage and told the Myrmidons, “I failed. I broke the promise that I made to Menoetius in his home the day we left for Troy, to comfort him. I told him I would bring his son back home famous and swathed in glory, and I said Patroclus would sack Troy and gain his share of loot and then return to Opoeis. But Zeus does not fulfill all human plans. Both of us have been fated to make red the same earth here in Troy. My own old father, the chariot driver Peleus, will never welcome me home again, and nor will Thetis, my mother. Earth will cover me right here. But now, Patroclus, I am not yet with you under the earth. Soon I will follow you. I will not bring back here the armor and the head of high and mighty Hector, who killed you. And I will choose twelve lovely Trojan children and slit their throats above your funeral pyre because I am so angry at your death. Till then, lie there beside the ships’ curved beaks and wait for me. Around you, night and day, Trojan and Dardan women in rich dresses will weep and cry. The two of us together laboured to capture them with spears and force, when we destroyed so many thriving cities, in which so many people used to live.”
— Hephaestus makes some cool ass armour and a shield and Thetis rushes to bring it to Achilles