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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Song of Achilles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Honor, Pride, and Legacy
Fate, Belief, and Control
Gender, Power, and Agency
Love, Violence, and Redemption
Selfhood and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
After each of the raids, men claim war spoils. It’s custom for each man to keep what he won, and the rest is piled on the dais then divided among the men based on their position. First pick goes to the best soldier. Agamemnon positions himself as number one and Achilles as number two, which doesn’t bother Achilles—he believes that it only makes Agamemnon seem greedy. In the third week, a beautiful girl stands among the objects on the dais, cheek bruised, hands tied. The men know that this means Agamemnon is now allowing bed-slaves; until now, women were just raped in the field. Agamemnon watches the girl, grinning. Without thinking, Patroclus asks Achilles to claim her instead, which he does. It’s a reasonable request, and Agamemnon has to grant it—he’ll have his pick of other girls.
Once again, the game like rules of warfare—in this instance, ranked picks for war spoils—just make the violence that happens seem worse. The men earn honor by dealing death, then, cash in that honor like casino chips to claim their winnings, whether gold or sexual slaves. Honor as practiced by most in this society has no connection to moral worth—it is more like a currency founded on the ability to deal violence. As the book has made clear, this society treats women as just one more object to be owned. That Patroclus is the one who pushes Achilles to claim the girl indicates that he is, instinctively, trying to protect this girl—though of course he can only do so by working within the society’s rules and Achilles right to claim her. There will obviously be other women on the dais, and Patroclus won’t be able to save them all.
Themes
Back in the Phthian camp, Achilles draws his knife, frightening the girl—he’s still covered in blood. They’re trying to free her, but she won’t let them near her, and as a farm-girl, she can’t speak Greek. Patroclus sees that she’s afraid of rape, so he kisses Achilles to appease her. Afterwards, he dresses her wounds and takes her to her tent. The next day, he sees her watching him from behind the flap and asks if she slept well; he thinks that maybe just talking will comfort her, even though she doesn’t understand. He introduces himself as Patroclus, but soon he sees that he’s frightening her and he goes to leave. Before he does, she points to herself, saying her name: Briseis. It’s the start of something.
It's worth noting that Achilles is bloody because he was part of the raids that ended in Briseis’s capture. He may be trying to free her now, but he’s participating in the culture and system that put her in this position, all to increase his own “honor.” The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles deviates from that system, though, which is why Patroclus thinks it might help win the girl’s trust. Also it is meaningful that Patroclus is not a part of the raids, and that too might influence Briseis’s view of him.
Themes
Patroclus discovers that Briseis does know some Greek: Mercy, please, what do you want, all phrases her father taught her after he heard about the raids. During the day, she and Patroclus begin to spend time together in the empty camp, watching the sea. This almost reminds Patroclus of watching the sea with his mother, but Briseis’s eyes are intelligent, and his mother’s weren’t. They pantomime to communicate; she’s funny and sometimes even smiles.
The phrases that Briseis’s father taught her—and the fact that the taught them to her after hearing of the raids—reflect the brutal reality of this world for the Trojan women—the best they can hope for is “mercy” from the Greek army. On the surface, Patroclus’s recognition of Briseis as more intelligent than his mother is a compliment of sorts to Briseis, but it also demonstrates that Patroclus doesn’t fully understand how universally bad things are for women in Greece and now Troy. Briseis might be smarter than his mother and she might be “free” when she’s with Achilles and Patroclus, but she and Patroclus’s mother are both in subordinate, trapped positions, dependent on the men around them.
Themes
The raids continue without any information emerging from the city, and every day there are a few more bruised girls on the dais. The girls are put to work in the camps, serving and polishing. At night, their cries are audible. Patroclus has Achilles claim as many of the girls as possible, and Diomedes jokes that he didn’t even know Achilles liked girls. Each girl goes to Briseis first, and then Phoinix and Patroclus help teach them. Achilles stays away; he was part of the raids, and he knows they wouldn’t forgive him. Briseis ends up teaching the girls some Greek, which she learned quickly. It’s almost easy to forget the war hasn’t begun yet.
Patroclus and Achilles have set up a shadow system to protect as many of the girls as they can. But in many ways, it feels like another small compromise that Patroclus is making. He can’t get angry at Achilles for being part of the raids, and he can’t change the structure of the war, so he’s helping a handful of women instead. That’s not nothing, but it also isn’t a change to the larger structure, and it turns a blind eye to Achilles’s role in the conflict, which the women themselves don’t have the luxury to forget. This is just a prelude to the war, but people are already suffering. Diomedes joke, meanwhile, seems to suggest a willingness among the other powers in the camp to allow Patroclus and Achilles efforts to protect the girls to continue—but such willingness can always be revoked.
Themes
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