The Iliad

by Robert Fagels

  Since his ships, as we have been told, are drawn up on the far flank of the beachhead, this is small comfort for Agamemnon; the embassy is a failure.

  The battle resumes, and Zeus fulfills his promise to Thetis: Hector and the Trojans drive the Achaeans back on their ships. The main Achaean fighters—Agamemnon, Diomedes and Odysseus—are wounded and retire from the melee. Achilles, watching all this from his tent, sends Patroclus off to inquire about another wounded man who has been brought back to the ships, Machaon, the physician of the Greek army. And he revels in the setbacks of the Achaeans. “Now,” he says, “I think they will grovel at my knees, / our Achaean comrades begging for their lives” (11.719-20). This passage is of course one of the main-stays of those who wish to attribute Book 9 to a later poet: it seems to them to show ignorance of the embassy to Achilles. But this is because they take it that Agamemnon’s offer of gifts was a fully adequate satisfaction; Grote (the most eloquent champion of this view) even speaks of “the outpouring of profound humiliation” by the Greeks and from Agamemnon especially. But as we have seen, Odysseus’ speech to Achilles contained not the slightest hint of apology on Agamemnon’s part, and certainly nothing like what Achilles demands—that Agamemnon pay “full measure for all his heartbreaking outrage.” There was no supplication made on behalf of Agamemnon; Phoenix’ mention of the Litai that come humbly and embarrassed to beg favor only underscored the point. Now, says Achilles, now they are beginning to feel the pinch, they will fall at my knees, in the suppliant position of abject prostration, a confession of utter weakness and dependence.

  Patroclus comes back from the tents of the Achaeans with news of Machaon’s wound and with a purpose: Nestor has primed him to ask Achilles, if he will not fight himself, to send Patroclus out in his armor. What Achilles now hears from Patroclus is the kind of balm for his wounded pride that he had hardly dared to hope for. Not only is Hector at the ships but:

  “There’s powerful Diomedes brought down by an archer,

  Odysseus wounded, and Agamemnon too, the famous spearman,

  and Eurypylus took an arrow-shot in the thigh . . . ” (16.28-30)

  This should be enough to satisfy even Achilles: no more dramatic proof of his superiority in battle could be imagined. And he begins to relent. Though he is still resentful of Agamemnon’s treatment of him, “Let bygones be bygones now. Done is done. / How on earth can a man rage on forever?” (16.69-70). He is willing to save the Achaeans, now that they are suitably punished for the wrong they did him. Why, then, does he not go into battle himself? He tells us:

  “Still, by god, I said I would not relax my anger,

  not till the cries and carnage reached my own ships.

  So you, you strap my splendid armor on your back,

  you lead our battle-hungry Myrmidons into action!—” (16.71-74)

  But Patroclus is not to go too far. He is to drive the Trojans back from the ships, no more: above all, he is not to assault Troy. He is to win glory for Achilles by beating off the Trojan attack, and then “they’ll send her back, my lithe and lovely girl, / and top it off with troves of glittering gifts” (16.99-100). Unlike the Meleager in Phoenix’ cautionary tale, he will receive the gifts once offered and refused, even though he does not join the fighting himself.

  All through this speech confused emotions are at war within him. What does he really want? He talks of the restitution of Briseis and gifts, the compensation offered and refused before. He talks of “the beloved day of our return” (16.95). Perhaps he does not know himself at this moment. But at the end of the speech there comes out of him the true expression of the godlike self-absorption in which he is still imprisoned.

  “Oh would to god—Father Zeus, Athena and lord Apollo—

  not one of all these Trojans could flee his death, not one,

  no Argive either, but we could stride from the slaughter

  so we could bring Troy’s hallowed crown of towers

  toppling down around us—you and I alone!” (16.115-19)

  Clearly what he really wishes for is a world containing nothing but himself and his own glory, for Patroclus, whom he now sends out in his own armor, he regards as a part of himself. This solipsistic dream of glory—“everybody dead but us two,” as a scandalized ancient commentator summarized it—so offended the great Alexandrian scholar Zenodotus that he condemned the lines as the work of an interpolator who wished to inject into the Iliad the later Greek idea (for which the text gives no warrant) that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers.

  All too soon the news comes from the battlefield: Patroclus is dead and the armies are fighting over his corpse. Achilles will return to the battle now, to avenge his friend; he sees the death of Patroclus as the fatal consequence of his quarrel with Agamemnon and wishes that “strife could die from the lives of gods and men” (18.126). He will make peace with Agamemnon. “Enough. / Let bygones be bygones. Done is done” (18.131-32). But this is not regret or self-criticism: he is still angry. “Despite my anguish I will beat it down, / the fury mounting inside me, down by force” (18.133-34). But he is angrier still with Hector. “Now I’ll go and meet that murderer head-on, / that Hector who destroyed the dearest life I know” (18.135-36). His mother has just told him that his death is fated to come soon after Hector’s, and though deeply disturbed by this news, he accepts his fate. Not to avenge Patroclus by killing Hector would be a renunciation of all that he stands for and has lived by, the attainment of glory, of the universal recognition that there is “no man my equal among the bronze-armed Achaeans” (18.124).

  He cannot go into battle at once, for he has no armor: his father’s panoply has been stripped from the corpse of Patroclus. Hector wears it now. Thetis goes off to have the god Hephaestus make new armor for her son, and when she brings it he summons an assembly of the Achaeans, as he had done at the very beginning of the poem. The wounded kings, Odysseus, Diomedes, Agamemnon, their wounds testimony to Achilles’ supremacy in combat, come to hear him. His address is short. He regrets the quarrel with Agamemnon and its results. He is still angry—that emerges clearly from his words—but he will curb his anger: he has a greater cause for anger now. He calls for an immediate general attack on the Trojan ranks, which are still marshaled outside the city walls, on the level ground.

  Agamemnon’s reply to Achilles’ short, impatient speech is long and elaborate. It is, in fact, an excuse. Achilles has come as close as he ever could to saying that he was wrong, but Agamemnon, even now, tries to justify himself as he addresses not only Achilles but also the army as a whole, which, as he is fully aware, blames him for the Achaean losses. His opening lines are an extraordinary appeal to the assembly for an orderly reception of his speech: “when a man stands up to speak, it’s well to listen. / Not to interrupt him, the only courteous thing” (19.91- 92). He disclaims responsibility for his action.

  “. . . I am not to blame!

  Zeus and Fate and the Fury stalking through the night,

  they are the ones who drove that savage madness in my heart . . .”

  (19.100-2)

  He is the victim, he claims, of Atê, the madness of self-delusion and the ruin it produces. “I was blinded,” he says, “and Zeus stole my wits .. ” (19.163). He is talking now to a full assembly of the Achaeans, which includes

  Even those who’d kept to the beached ships till now,

  the helmsmen who handled the heavy steering-oars

  and stewards left on board to deal out rations— (19.48-50)

  At the council of the kings, when the embassy to Achilles was decided on, he had spoken more frankly: “Mad, blind I was! / Not even I would deny it” (9.138-39). He does not make so honest an admission of responsibility here. And now he promises to deliver the gifts that were offered and refused, and to restore Briseis and swear a great oath that he has not touched her.

  To all this, Achilles is utterly indifferent. He shows no interest in Agamemnon’s excuses or in the gifts: clearly he feels that this is all a waste of time
. He has only one thing on his mind: Hector. And he urges immediate resumption of the fighting. He is talking of sending back into combat men who are many of them wounded, all of them tired, hungry, thirsty. Odysseus reminds him of the facts of life. “No fighter can battle all day long, cut-and-thrust / till the sun goes down, if he is starved for food” (19.193-94). Odysseus suggests not only time for the army to rest and feed, but also a public ceremony of reconciliation: the acceptance of Agamemnon’s gifts, the swearing of the oath about Briseis. Agamemnon approves the advice and gives orders to prepare a feast. But Achilles’ reply is brusque and uncompromising. He is not interested in ceremonies of reconciliation which will serve to restore Agamemnon’s prestige; he is not interested in Agamemnon’s excuses, still less in food; he thinks of one thing and one thing only: Hector. He is for battle now, and food at sunset, after the day’s work. The corpse of Patroclus makes it impossible for him to eat or drink before Hector’s death avenges Patroclus and reestablishes Achilles’ identity as the unchallengeable, unconquerable violence of war personified:

  “You talk of food?

  I have no taste for food—what I really crave

  is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of menl” (19.253-55)

  Achilles’ outburst is inhuman—godlike, in fact. But the others are men, and Odysseus reminds him what it is to be human.

  “. . . We must steel our hearts. Bury our dead,

  with tears for the day they die, not one day more.

  And all those left alive, after the hateful carnage,

  remember food and drink—” (19.271-74)

  Human beings must put limits to their sorrow, their passions; they must recognize the animal need for food and drink. But not Achilles. He will not eat while Hector still lives. And as if to point up the godlike nature of his passionate intensity, Homer has Athena sustain him, without his knowledge, on nectar and ambrosia, the food of the gods.

  When he does go into battle, the Trojans turn and run for the gates; only Hector remains outside. And the two champions come face-to-face at last. Hector offers a pact to Achilles, the same pact he has made before the formal duel with Ajax in Book 7—the winner to take his opponent’s armor but give his body to his fellow soldiers for burial. The offer is harshly refused. This is no formal duel, and Achilles is no Ajax; he is hardly even human: he is godlike, both greater and lesser than a man. The contrast between the raw, self-absorbed fury of Achilles and the civilized responsibility and restraint of Hector is maintained to the end. It is of his people, the Trojans, that Hector is thinking as he throws his spear at Achilles: “How much lighter the war would be for Trojans then / if you, their greatest scourge, were dead and gone!” (22.339-40). But it is Hector who dies, and as Achilles exults over his fallen enemy, his words bring home again the fact that he is fighting for himself alone; this is the satisfaction of a personal hatred. The reconciliation with Agamemnon and the Greeks was a mere formality to him, and he is still cut off from humanity, a prisoner of his self-esteem, his obsession with honor—the imposition of his identity on all men and all things.

  “Hector—surely you thought when you stripped Patroclus’ armor

  that you, you would be safe! Never a fear of me,

  far from the fighting as I was—you fool!

  Left behind there, down by the beaked ships

  his great avenger waited, a greater man by far—

  that man was I . . . ” (22.390-95)

  He taunts Hector with the fate of his body. “The dogs and birds will maul you, shame your corpse / while Achaeans bury my dear friend in glory!” (22.397-98). And in answer to Hector’s plea and offer of ransom for his corpse, he reveals the extreme of inhuman hatred and fury he has reached:

  “Beg no more, you fawning dog—begging me by my parents!

  Would to god my rage, my fury would drive me now

  to hack your flesh away and eat you raw—” (22.407-9)

  This is how the gods hate. His words recall those of Zeus to Hera in Book 4:

  “Only if you could breach

  their gates and their long walls and devour Priam

  and Priam’s sons and the Trojan armies raw—

  then you just might cure your rage at last. ” (4.39-42)

  And as Achilles goes on we recognize the tone, the words, the phrases:

  “No man alive could keep the dog-packs off you,

  not if they haul in ten, twenty times that ransom

  and pile it here before me and promise fortunes more—

  no, not even if Dardan Priam should offer to weigh out

  your bulk in gold! Not even then . . . ” (22.411-15)

  We have heard this before, when he refused the gifts of Agamemnon:

  “Not if he gave me ten times as much, twenty times over, all

  he possesses now, and all that could pour in from the world’s end—. . .

  no, not if his gifts outnumbered all the grains of sand

  and dust in the earth—no, not even then . . . ” (9.464-71)

  It is the same rage now as then, implacable, unappeasable, like the rage of Hera and Athena—only its object has changed.

  Achilles lashes Hector’s body to his chariot and, in full view of the Trojans on the walls, drags it to his tent, where he organizes a magnificent funeral for Patroclus. After the burning of the pyre, the hero’s memory is celebrated with funeral games—contests, simulated combat, in honor of a fallen warrior. Such was the origin, the Greeks believed, of all the great games—the Olympian, the Pythian, the Isthmian, the Nemean Games, and in Homer himself we hear of funeral games for Amarynceus of Elis and for Oedipus of Thebes. The honor paid to the dead man is marked by the richness of the prizes and the efforts of the contestants. Here the prizes are offered by Achilles, so he himself does not compete. There are to be many contests: a chariot race (which earns the longest and most elaborate description), a boxing match, wrestling, a foot race; after that a fight in full armor, weight throwing and an archery contest. As the events are described we see all the great Achaean heroes, familiar to us from battle-scenes, locked now not in combat but in the fierce effort of peaceful contest. Homer takes our minds away from the grim work of war and the horror of Achilles’ degradation of Hector’s corpse to show us a series of brilliant characterizations of his heroes in new situations. But the most striking feature of this account of the games is the behavior of Achilles. This seems to be a different man. It is the great Achilles of the later aristocratic tradition, the man of princely courtesy and innate nobility visible in every aspect of his bearing and conduct, the Achilles who was raised by the centaur Chiron. It is a vision of what Achilles might have been in peace, if peace had been a possibility in the heroic world, or, for that matter, in Homer’s world. “The man,” says Aristotle in the Politics, “who is incapable of working in common, or who in his self-sufficiency has no need of others, is no part of the community, like a beast, or a god.” As far as his fellow Achaeans are concerned, Achilles has broken out of the self-imposed prison of godlike unrelenting fury, reintegrated himself in society, returned to something like human feeling; he is part of the community again.

  All through the games he acts with a tact, diplomacy and generosity that seem to signal the end of his desperate isolation, his godlike self-absorption; we almost forget that Hector’s corpse is still lying in the dust, tied to his chariot. But if we had forgotten we are soon reminded. Once the games are over, Achilles, weeping whenever he remembers Patroclus—“his gallant heart—/ What rough campaigns they’d fought to an end together” (24.8-9)—drags Hector’s corpse three times around Patroclus’ tomb. But Apollo wards off corruption from the body, and on Olympus the gods are filled with compassion for Hector: all the gods, that is, except Hera, Athena and Poseidon—a formidable combination. Apollo (the champion of Troy as the other three are its enemies) speaks up for action to rescue Hector’s body. For him, Achilles is the lower extreme of Aristotle’s alternatives—a beast:

  “—like some lio
n

  going his own barbaric way, giving in to his power,

  his brute force and wild pride . . . ” (24.48-50)

  Hera, on the other hand, sees him as closer to the other alternative—a god: “Achilles sprang from a goddess—one I reared myself” (24.71). So Zeus makes a decision designed to satisfy both sides: Thetis is to tell Achilles to surrender Hector’s body to Priam, but Priam is to come as suppliant to Achilles’ tents, bringing a sign of honor, a rich ransom.

  When Thetis conveys to Achilles the will of Zeus, his attitude is exactly the same as his reaction to Agamemnon’s renewed offer of gifts after the death of Patroclus—cold indifference. He agrees to accept the ransom, but his speech shows no relenting; his heart is still of iron. What is needed to break the walls down, to restore him to full humanity, is the arrival in his tent not of the herald, whom he evidently expected to bring the ransom, but of Priam himself, alone, a suppliant in the night. And that unforeseen confrontation is what Zeus now moves to bring about.

  The god Hermes guides Priam safely through the Achaean sentries and through the gate that bars the entrance to Achilles’ courtyard; Priam takes Achilles by surprise as he sits at table, his meal just finished. His appearance, unannounced, is a mystery, a thing unprecedented, and Achilles is astonished. Homer expresses that astonishment by means of a simile, one of the most disconcerting of the whole poem:

  as when the grip of madness seizes one

  who murders a man in his own fatherland and flees