I stopped watching for the ridicule, the scorpion’s tail hidden in his words. 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?
Patroclus explains growing comfortable with Achilles. He grew up in a cruel, disdainful household, and he expects Achilles to be the same, but Achilles proves himself to be a straightforward and genuine young man. The metaphor of the scorpion’s tail is reminiscent of the story of the scorpion and the frog. While it’s unlikely that Patroclus himself would make that association, considering the tale doesn’t date back far enough to appear in Greek texts, Miller would likely anticipate that resonance for contemporary readers. The metaphor of the scorpion’s hidden tail illustrates that Patroclus expects pain from others, as well as the scorpion acting in his own self-interest (at least until he grows to trust and love Achilles).
Patroclus also learns that Achilles has a sort of flaw: He doesn't understand deceit. This will complicate his life later, when he interacts with men like Odysseus who are cunning masters of deception. Up to this point, Achilles has never needed to be anything but simple. Patroclus admires this about him; later, he will be frustrated by Achilles' naïveté, but even then he won’t be able to blame him for being himself.
Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child. Orpheus’ voice made the trees weep, Heracles could kill a man by clapping him on the back. Achilles’ miracle was his speed. His spear, as he began the first pass, moved faster than my eye could follow. It whirled, flashing forward, reversed, then flashed behind. The shaft seemed to flow in his hands, the dark gray point flickered like a snake’s tongue. His feet beat the ground like a dancer, never still.
Patroclus explains the unique nature of being god-born and gives us powerful examples before explaining Achilles' "miracle." The examples he gives—Orpheus and Heracles (sons of Apollo and Zeus respectively)—are famous god-born men who, like Achilles, lose the one they love in ways their god-born blood can't fix. Orpheus can charm inanimate objects to life with his music, but he fails to escort Eurydice from the underworld. Heracles's strength works against him when he kills his wife under a spell of madness. Achilles chooses to not use his gift of speed on the battlefield, so Patroclus tragically dies in his place.
In this scene, Patroclus admires Achilles' miraculous speed, using a simile to compare the tip of his spear to a snake's tongue. (Later in the novel, Achilles will quickly grab a snake and save Patroclus's life—he is literally faster than a snake.) His feet beat the ground "like a dancer," a simile that echoes Achilles' future as an actual dancer on Scryos with Deidameia. The comparisons here don't just illustrate Achilles' speed; they hint at aspects of what the boys' future holds. Considering the retrospective nature of Patroclus's narration, we should likely read them as deliberate references as he looks back on his life, rather than random literary devices that foreshadow what is to come.
"What would you have done?" I asked.
Achilles tapped a finger against the branch he sat on. "I don't know. I can't imagine it. The way the boy spoke to you." He shrugged. "No one has ever tried to take something from me."
"Never?" I could not believe it. A life without such things seemed impossible.
"Never." He was silent a moment, thinking. "I don't know," he repeated, finally. "I think I would be angry." He closed his eyes and rested his head back against a branch. The green oak leaves crowded around his hair, like a crown.
When Achilles learns that Patroclus killed a boy because he tried to take away Patroclus's dice, Achilles is fascinated. Patroclus is, in many ways, more worldly than Achilles: He has killed before the great warrior, and he has dealt with loss more often than one of the most legendary tragic Greek heroes.
This conversation foreshadows Agamemnon taking Briseis from Achilles, and the rage with which Achilles reacts. It also provides some dramatic irony, assuming we know the story of the Iliad. Achilles says here he would be angry, but we know that he will be more than just angry; he gives Briseis to be raped and allows almost all of the Greek army to die, because Agamemnon insults his honor and won't apologize.
The literary devices in the quotation indicate that young Achilles is kingly in this moment. The green oak leaves "crowded," personification showing leaves gather around him the way men will crowd him when he is Aristos Achaion. "Like a crown" is a simile that looks backward, echoing the first time Patroclus saw Achilles, reminding the reader of the crown of leaves five-year-old Patroclus holds while Achilles wins a footrace.
"But why did the madness come?"
"The gods wished to punish him," Chiron answered.
Achilles shook his head, impatiently. "But this was a greater punishment for her. It was not fair of them."
"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.
I listened and did not speak. 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.
Achilles' conversation with Chiron foreshadows many elements of the narrative to come. Achilles is left on earth after Patroclus's death, and he is tormented by grief; after, Patroclus's spirit is trapped on earth without Achilles, and he believes he must suffer this "greater grief" for eternity. Patroclus's death can be said to be a result of a sort of god-wrought madness, like Heracles's, compelling him to battle and climb the walls of Troy. The conversation also foreshadows Briseis accusing Achilles of being responsible for Patroclus's death: Where he says the gods were unfair to let Megara be killed, Briseis says Achilles was unfair to let Patroclus be killed. Even Patroclus's sureness of knowing Achilles' face echoes the tragic end of the text, when he dons Achilles' helmet and the only difference he feels between their appearances is he lacks Achilles' "bright eyes."
Who is punished "more," the dead or the survivor, is a question the novel doesn't concretely answer. Both the griever and the grieved are shown to suffer immensely.
The words came tonelessly, as a statue would speak them. “If you go to Troy, you will never return. You will die a young man there.”
Achilles’ face went pale. “It is certain?”
This is what all mortals ask first, in disbelief, shock, fear. Is there no exception for me?
When Thetis tells Achilles that he must choose between a short life of fame or a long life of obscurity, Achilles is shocked. The narration here implies that Patroclus has seen "all mortals ask" this question, opening room for interpretation: As he narrates from his half-spirit state, has death granted Patroclus some kind of omniscience? Or has he lived as a spirit long enough to have seen mortal after mortal ask if they are the exception?
Thetis's dialogue is described with the simile "as a statue would speak," a complicated descriptor because, of course, statues can't speak. It's more evocative than informative. Similes like this ask the reader to imagine the unreal, forcing them to engage deeply with the text. How might a statue speak, if the impossible were possible? The reader must fill in the blank created by the simile.
The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream. Every day, without him.
Patroclus compares waking up without Achilles to being in a tomb, which, if the narrator were alive, might be a bit presumptuous. However, since he narrates from beyond death, tied permanently to his joint tomb with Achilles, "It is like a tomb" has much more rhetorical value. The comparison informs us that, yes, the room without Achilles really is like a tomb; the reverse is true as well: Patroclus's current experience of literally being stuck in a tomb feels like the days he spent waiting for Achilles to come back from his duty. The difference depicted here is that when he is alive, Patroclus is able to use physicality to fight off "rising hysteria" (a woman-associated word), whereas spirit-Patroclus feels nothing at all and has no relief. The misplaced epithet of "wild-eyed tightness" contributes to the confused, hysterical sensation of the passage.
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.
While Achilles goes off to battle, Patroclus stays home and prepares for his return (much like the wife he will later be compared to, Cleopatra to Achilles' Meleager). He performs the emotional labor of processing Achilles' violence and the excitement around it, listening to things he doesn't want to know so that he can make Achilles "Achilles again." Patroclus's thinking is shown to be quite different from his Greek compatriots', many of whom would revel in bloody images, not have to "digest" them. Few of the Greek warriors would consider the vase of posterity as "unremarkable" as Patroclus does. The metaphor of himself as the painter of the vase involves him in Achilles' work, and it communicates that Patroclus doesn't love Achilles' work at all. Patroclus loves Achilles, not the vases and songs that will be made about him. Releasing Achilles from his "great deeds" is labor, and Achilles himself, unburdened, is the reward.
"Put me in your armor, and I will lead the Myrmidons. They will think it is you." The words shocked us both. They seemed to come through me, not from me, as though spoken straight from a god's mouth. Yet I seized on them, as a drowning man. "Do you see? You will not have to break your oath, yet the Greeks will be saved."
When Patroclus proposes dressing as Achilles, he is surprised by his own words. The quotation above makes it unclear if "as though spoken straight from a god's mouth" should be taken as a simile or as a literal description of events. The following sentence contains a non-literal simile. Should the parallelism in these sentences be interpreted to mean that both "as X" phrases function as merely illustrative rhetorical devices? Or does that parallelism highlight the difference between the very possible "as though spoken from a god's mouth" and the clearly non-literal "as a drowning man"? Patroclus himself seems unsure of the answer, leaving interpretation to the reader, despite this decision being a pivotal point in the text.
I have killed a son of Zeus, but it is not enough. They must think it is Achilles who has done it. The dust has already settled on Sarpedon's long hair, like pollen on the underside of a bee. I retrieve my spear and stab it down with all my strength into his chest. The blood spurts, but weakly. There is no heartbeat to push it forward. When I pull the spear out, it dislodges slowly, like a bulb from cracking earth. That is what they will think has killed him.
By killing Sarpedon, son of Zeus, Patroclus has accomplished his most conventionally heroic act of the book. He uses two similes, comparing the dust of the battlefield to the pollen on the underside of a bee, and then a spearhead to a growing plant. These nature-based rhetorical devices indicate that this killing has the appearance of growth rather than death, and they reveal how much Patroclus's education in biology and forestry affects his narration. Similarly, his explanation of the weakened blood spurt is informed by his medical experience. Patroclus is acting as Achilles, actively creating the myth of Achilles, but he describes it in a way that is uniquely Patroclus.
Hector’s eyes are wide, but he will run no longer. He says, “Grant me this. Give my body to my family, when you have killed me.”
Achilles makes a sound like choking. “There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.” His spear-point flies in a dark whirlwind, bright as the evening-star, to catch the hollow at Hector’s throat.
Achilles' comparison of himself to a lion here is Miller's direct translation of one of Achilles' lines in the Iliad. Achilles does give Hector's body to his family eventually, so perhaps Priam is a fellow lion, or perhaps Priam's supplication reminds Achilles of his humanity, allowing him to bargain with men again. His spear-point is simultaneously dark and bright, and it "catches" a "hollow," which at least superficially seems contradictory, catching negative space. Catching is a childish thing, playful, like juggling figs, but here it is used to describe murder in an almost soft, lovely way.
