Quote 1
(Achilleus:)
For my mother Thetis the goddess of the silver feet tells me
I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day my death. Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly. (9.410-416)
Achilleus's destiny gives him a choice over how he is going to lead his life. How does this fit in with the picture of destiny elsewhere in the work? Is Achilleus just special? If you had a destiny like him, would you rather know it or have it kept secret from you?
Quote 2
(Achilleus:)
And now my prize you threaten in person to strip from me,
for whom I labored much, the gift of the sons of the Achaians.
Never, when the Achaians sack some well-founded citadel
of the Trojans, do I have a prize that is equal to your prize. […]
Now I am returning to Phthia, since it is much better
to go home again with my curved ships, and I am minded no longer
to stay here dishonoured and pile up your wealth and your luxury. (1.161-164, 169-171)
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – except in the case of Achilleus, where the reaction is unequal and vastly more destructive than the original action. All the same, don't you think Achilleus has a bit of a point here? If he's doing all the work, how come Agamemnon gets to take all the credit? Don't you think that would make you a bit angry?
Quote 3
(Achilleus:)
Son of Telamon, seed of Zeus, Aias, lord of the people:
all that you have said seems spoken after my own mind.
Yet still the heart in me swells up in anger, when I remember
the disgrace that he wrought upon me before the Argives,
the son of Atreus, as if I were some dishonoured vagabond. (9.644-648)
This parting remark by Achilleus to the emissaries makes it pretty clear what made him most mad about Agamemnon's actions in Book 1. Agamemnon has just offered to give Achilleus Briseis back, and to swear an oath that he never slept with her. On top of that, he's throwing in a lot of awesome stuff, which you can read about in our summary of Book 9. But Achilleus refuses it all, because he isn't interested in material things: he cares about his honor.
Quote 4
(Achilleus:)
Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard.
We are all held in a single honour, the brave with the weaklings.
A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much. (9.318-320)
Achilleus's attitude here is not unique in the Iliad. (Compare his remarks here with those of Hektor in Book 6, lines 488-489, quoted in the section on "Fate and Free Will.") What makes them distinctive is that they come from Achilleus. Do you think that this attitude is consistent with his character elsewhere in the Iliad? For a modern literary treatment of death as the great leveler, read W. B. Yeats's great poem "Cuchulain Comforted." (Cuchulainn, pronounced "Ka-HOO-lan," is a great hero of Celtic mythology.)
(Achilleus:)
"Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us,
and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me
unrelentingly to rage on." (19.65-68)
With these words, Achilleus makes his peace with Agamemnon. But do you think he really forgives him, or is it just that now an even bigger hatred (against Hektor) has distracted him?
Quote 6
(Achilleus:)
Poor fool, no longer speak to me of ransom, nor argue it.
In the time before Patroklos came to the day of his destiny
then it was the way of my heart's choice to be sparing
of the Trojans, and many I took alive and disposed of them.
Now there is not one who can escape death, if the gods send
him against my hands in front of Ilion, not one
of all the Trojans and beyond others the children of Priam.
So, friend, you die also. Why all this clamour about it?
Patroklos also is dead, who was better by far than you are.
Do you not see what a man I am, how huge, how splendid
and born of a great father, and the mother who bore me immortal?
Yet even I have also my death and my strong destiny,
and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime
when some man in the fighting will take the life from me also
either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bowstring. (21.99-113)
This famous passage throws a wrench in the machinery of the theme of compassion. On the one hand, it seems to be a classic example of the failure of compassion: after all, Achilleus is saying that nobody can offer him anything that will make him stop killing as many Trojans as he can. On the other hand, he does put himself in Lykaon's shoes, so to speak, when he imagines that one day he, too, will be violently killed. What do you make of this ambiguity?
(Achilleus:)
Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.
As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions,
nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement
but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other,
so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be
oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then
to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard. (22.261-267)
Throughout history, nothing has prevented compassion so often as the belief that one's enemy isn't even a member of the same species. This is what Achilleus is getting at when he compares their situation to a fight between a man and a lion, or a lamb and a wolf – except that he, of course, wants to keep it that way. What do you think Homer wants us to think about Achilleus at this moment?
(Achilleus:)
"Welcome. You are my friends who have come, and greatly I need you,
who even to this my anger are dearest of all the Achaians.'
So brilliant Achilleus spoke, and guided them forward,
and caused them to sit down on couches with purple coverlets […]." (9.197-200)
In this scene, Achilleus welcomes Odysseus, Aias, and Phoinix, who have come to his tent to present Agamemnon's offer of a consolation gift. It seems similar to his lines in Book 1 above, where he shows that, even though he's mad at Agamemnon, he doesn't hold a grudge against those who have to carry out his orders.
The thing is, the Greek text here is actually a bit unclear. The end of line 197 really just says "there is great need," which could be interpreted as either "I need you" or "you need me." How would your interpretation of Achilleus's actions change if Lattimore (the translator we have been using) had translated it the other way?
Quote 9
(Achilleus:)
[…] afterwards when the sun sets
make ready a great dinner, when we have paid off our defilement.
But before this, for me at least, neither drink nor food shall
go down my very throat, since my companion has perished
and lies inside my shelter torn about with the cutting
bronze, and turned against the forecourt while my companions
mourn about him. (19.208-213)
In most cultures, eating is a social occasion to join together with friends. Why do you think Achilleus would refuse food at this point of the story?
Quote 10
(Achilleus:)
There was a time, ill fated, o dearest of all my companions,
when you yourself would set the desirable dinner before me
quickly and expertly, at the time the Achaians were urgent
to carry sorrowful war on the Trojans, breakers of horses.
But now you lie here torn before me, and my heart goes starved
for meat and drink, though they are here beside me, by reason
of longing for you. There is nothing worse than this I could suffer,
not even if I were to hear of the death of my father […]
or the death of my dear son, who is raised for my sake in Skyros
now, if godlike Neoptolemos is still one of the living. (19.315-322, 326-327)
In these lines, with his typical extreme emotion, Achilleus expresses the depth of his grief at losing Patroklos.
Quote 11
(Priam:)
"Make haste, wicked children, my disgraces. I wish all of you
had been killed beside the running ships in the place of Hektor.
Ah me, for my evil destiny. I have had the noblest
of sons in Troy, but I say not one of them is left to me,
Mestor like a god and Troilos whose delight was in horses,
and Hektor, who was a god among men, for he did not seem like
one who was child of a mortal man, but of a god. All these
Ares has killed, and all that are left me are the disgraces,
the liars and the dancers, champions of the chorus, the plunderers
of their own people in their land of lambs and kids." (24.253-262)
This sounds like an insult toward his other children (okay, so it is), but doesn't it also express the depth of Priam's love for his son, Hektor? This is the only mention of Priam's sons Mestor and Troilos, who apparently died before the book begins. What do you make of this fact?
(Achilleus:)
You wine sack, with a dog's eyes, with a deer's heart. Never
once have you taken courage in your heart to arm with your people
for battle, or go into ambuscade with the best of the Achaians.
No, for in such things you see death. Far better to your mind
is it, all along the widespread host of the Achaians
to take away the gifts of any man who speaks up against you.
King who feed on your people, since you rule nonentities;
otherwise, son of Atreus, this were your last outrage. (1.225-232)
Achilleus sure knows how to throw out the disses. These lines suggest a number of reasons why he might hate Agamemnon. Which (if any) of them do you think is the main motivation for Achilleus's hate?
Quote 13
(Achilleus:)
Go back and proclaim to him all that I tell you,
openly, so other Achaians may turn against him in anger […].
He cheated me and he did me hurt. Let him not beguile me
with words again. This is enough for him. Let him of his own will
be damned, since Zeus of the counsels has taken his wits away from him.
I hate his gifts. I hold him light as the strip of a splinter.
Not if he gave me ten times as much, and twenty times over
as he possesses now, not if more should come to him from elsewhere, […]
not if he gave me gifts as many as the sand or the dust is,
not even so would Agamemnon have his way with my spirit
until he had made good to me all this heartrending insolence.
Nor will I marry a daughter of Atreus' son, Agamemnon,
not if she challenged Aphrodite the golden for loveliness,
not if she matched the work of her hands with grey-eyed Athene;
not even so will I marry her; let him pick some other Achaian […]. (9.369-370, 375-380, 385-391)
This is pretty self-explanatory. We just thought these were some serious disses, and deserved to be given a fair hearing. Actually, this is only a taste of the full passage. If you really want to hear Agamemnon get owned, you'll have to take a look at the original.
Quote 14
(Achilleus:)
Now, since I am not going back to the beloved land of my fathers,
since I was no light of safety to Patroklos, nor to my other
companions, who in their numbers went down before glorious Hektor,
but sit here beside my ships, a useless weight on the good land, […]
why, I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals,
and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind,
that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart
and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey. (18.101-104, 107-110)
Like so many passages in the Iliad, this one looks simple on the surface, but can provide more than enough food for thought. First of all, we think it is worth considering that part of Achilleus's hate is directed towards himself, as these lines show. (Also remember that, earlier in this book, at lines 33-34, Antilochos had to hold Achilleus's hands to make sure he didn't kill himself.)
Second, what do you think about his closing words, which suggest that there is something about anger or hate that makes it taste sweet to those who experience it?
Quote 15
(Achilleus:)
Poor fool, no longer speak to me of ransom, nor argue it.
In the time before Patroklos came to the day of his destiny
then it was the way of my heart's choice to be sparing
of the Trojans, and many I took alive and disposed of them.
Now there is not one who can escape death, if the gods send
him against my hands in front of Ilion, not one
of all the Trojans and beyond others the children of Priam. (21.99-105)
For a fuller version of this quote, look at our discussion of it under the theme of "Compassion and Forgiveness." Right now, though, it stands as a pretty clear statement of how Achilleus has a turned a page. Instead of hating his friends and praying for the Trojans to beat them, now he is completely consumed with hatred for the Trojans.
Quote 16
(Achilleus:)
No more entreating of me, you dog, by knees or parents.
I wish only that my spirit and fury would drive me
to hack your meat away and eat it raw for the things that
you have done to me. So there is no one who can hold the dogs off
from your head, not if they bring here and set before me ten times
and twenty times the ransom, and promise more in addition,
not if Priam son of Dardanos should offer to weigh out
your bulk in gold; not even so shall the lady your mother
who herself bore you lay you on the death-bed and mourn you:
no, but the dogs and the birds will have you all for their feasting. (22.345-354)
This is probably the most extreme expression of hatred in the entire Iliad. (The only other lines that come close, and possibly equal these, are those of Hektor's mother, in Book 24, lines 212-214.) How do these lines contribute to our understanding of Achilleus's character?
Quote 17
(Achilleus:)
Friends, who are leaders of the Argives and keep their counsel:
[…] the gods have granted me the killing of this man
who has done us much damage […]. (378-380)
Achilleus gives the gods credit for the killing of Hektor. Does this seem consistent or inconsistent with his character more generally?