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Chapter 23
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
More years pass. A Greek soldier starts to complain about how long the war has gone on with nothing gained, including Helen. His anger is contagious, and is amplified by the men’s discomfort, as it’s been a wet season with many infections and biting flies. Agamemnon has some of the malcontents whipped, but this only produces more unrest. One day, hundreds of Greeks refuse to fight at all—Agamemnon accidentally bludgeons one, and the others pull knives on him. He’s unguarded and begins to realize his grave error.
The soldiers were sold a story about the war against Troy. That it would be easy, would make them rich, and would defend the honor of Helen. But now they have been there for years and have nothing to show for it. For his part, Agamemnon misunderstands his level of control. He thinks that as the leader he can do to the men as he wishes, but he discovers that if he tries to exploit and abuse his soldiers too much, they will turn on him. He has ruled through manipulation and fear, but he discovers in this moment that those have limits.
Themes
Just before they attack, Achilles stands up on the dais. He acknowledges the legitimacy of the soldiers’ anger—something generals don’t do—and asks them to speak. The soldier’s say that they’re upset at how long it’s been, and Patroclus can’t blame them: he reflects that these four years have been a gift to him, stolen time before Achilles’s destiny comes to pass, but to these men it has been lost time from their homes and lives. As Agamemnon looks on, angry, Achilles assures the men that Aristos Achaion doesn’t fight unwinnable wars. He says that if the men want to leave, they can, but Achilles will take possession of the treasure they would have otherwise won in Troy. The men are rejuvenated. Agamemnon just watches Achilles.
Achilles saves Agamemnon’s life, but Agamemnon is clearly not grateful. In saving Agamemnon’s life, Achilles also reduces his stature, and shifts the soldier’s focus and admiration from Agamemnon to him. It’s also worth noting that Achilles relates to the soldiers not as a king but as a fellow—if better— soldier. He does not command them, but rather projects confidence and conjures images of the wealth still to be won. All Achilles had to do to gain the soldiers’ trust was listen to them, which suggests just how badly they’ve been treated by Agamemnon.
Themes
Afterwards, Odysseus establishes a project to keep the men busy: building a fence around the camp. Diomedes stresses the urgency of this task: if the Trojans were to burn the Greeks’ ships, no one could leave. The fence will prevent anything like that from happening. Meanwhile, Odysseus finds the first mutineer and has him beaten. The discontent ends, and the men begin to think of Troy as home, building infrastructure and uniting as one single army. Once the war is over, the Greek armies won’t fight among themselves for a generation.
It is not clear to what extent Achilles was manipulating the soldiers or was instead truly confident in himself and his destiny. But Odysseus and Diomedes then take over and are in full manipulation mode. The fence takes up the soldier’s time, while its purpose reminds the soldiers of their eventual return home. Odysseus and Diomedes are not overly concerned about the soldier’s individual well-being—they beat the original malcontent, after all—but they are adept at turning the men into a single army. Odysseus, once again, is always in control and the fact that this war unites the Greeks for a generation hints at his larger goals for this war.
Themes
Even Patroclus begins to know the other men and the other kings as he works in the medical tent, delivering children and healing wounds. He becomes known for causing minimal pain. He knows more of the men’s names than Achilles; Achilles finds it easier if they just remember his. The female captives in the Phthian camp begin to take husbands. Only Briseis remains single, though not for want of attention.
Patroclus continues to act as the anti-Achilles, healing wounds while Achilles causes them. At the same time, Achilles has become increasingly remote—increasingly less human—in his interactions with other people. Achilles, it seems, is surrounded always by his fame, which comes between him and others. While it’s nice that the women in the Phthian camp take husbands, it’s hard to forget that they were captives. None of their choices are totally their own.
Themes
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One morning, Achilles and Patroclus are lazily making love when suddenly Thetis appears. Patroclus hasn’t seen her since Scyros—she looks exactly the same. She tells them that Apollo is upset, and wants to punish the Greeks, and so they need to make a sacrifice to him. Achilles agrees to perform the sacrifice, but Thetis reveals that she has more to tell them. She has learned of a new prophecy: that the “best of the Myrmidons” will die within two years, but Achilles will not be the one to die. She’s afraid that they are being tricked by the Fates.
In this passage, Thetis literally interrupts the love between Achilles and Patroclus. Thetis’s panic has to do with her sense of a loss of control. On the one hand, there are other, more powerful gods who can sway the direction of the war. And the Greeks seek to get the gods favor through pious religious actions, such as sacrifice. But more important is her lack of knowledge, the way that fate offers a glimpse of the future that only becomes clear once it has already happened (just as foreshadowing often works in a novel).
Themes
When Thetis leaves, Achilles and Patroclus try to puzzle out the prophecy. They think of which of the Myrmidons it might relate to: perhaps Automedon, or maybe to Peleus. At least it’s not Achilles. That day, they sacrifice to Apollo. Patroclus prays to him, and he prays also for the “best of the Myrmidons.”
Patroclus and Achilles continue to treat fate as a kind of puzzle that they can figure out and then evade. But fate isn’t a puzzle, and can’t be evaded. Fate is an outcome, and any effort to evade it ends up playing into that outcome. Also worth noting that as they try to think of who the “best” Myrmidon might be, they focus on the most powerful warriors, which is another indication of the Greek value system.
Themes
Patroclus begins to teach Briseis medicine, and in return she teaches him about local herbs. One day when they are together, he imagines her as a young girl, wishing he’d known her then. He thinks about how they could have skipped stones together with Patroclus’s mother, and he can practically remember it happening. As he is thinking these things, she kisses him. Then she apologizes—she says that she knows that Patroclus loves Achilles, but she also knows that some men have both wives and lovers. Patroclus says that he doesn’t want a wife, but if he did, it would be Briseis. She asks if he wants children. Not understanding her, he says he wouldn’t be a good parent. When she says that she might want them, he realizes what she was trying to say.
Patroclus equates Briseis with innocence and love, with a time before violence in his life, when stones were something he skipped and not what Clysonymus hit his head on when he fell after Patroclus pushed him. His love for Achilles has always been tied up with Achilles’s violent destiny, but his imagined love with Briseis would have been different. Yet while Patroclus imagines a kind of family with his mother and Briseis, Briseis offers him a chance at a real family, one that could include her and Achilles and a child.
Themes
That night, Patroclus keeps thinking about the child he’d have with Briseis, but he feels an emptiness in the thought: where is Achilles in this vision? And yet Briseis had offered a life with her and with Achilles. When Patroclus asks Achilles if he thinks about kids, Achilles reminds him that he has a child. He says that the boy’s name is Neoptolemus, or “New War,” and is nicknamed Pyrrhus. Achilles doesn’t wish he could be with him; it’s better that Thetis has him.
Patroclus is imagining a future of family and love, centered around a child. But Achilles is in a very different place: not simply because he already has a child, but because he doesn’t share the vision. Achilles’s doesn’t wish to be with the child—to experience or give that kind of paternal love. Further, as indicated by the child’s name, Achilles has already initiated his child into the Greek legacy of war and violence. While the characters in the novel don’t get the reference, the child’s nickname refers to a military victory that is so costly it might as well be a loss (a “pyrrhic victory”), which offers a further commentary from the novel on the war-mongering of the Greeks and of Achilles.
Themes
Patroclus waits for Achilles to return the question and as if Patroclus wants kids. When Achilles doesn’t, he asks Achilles if he likes Briseis. Achilles is confused. Does Briseis want a child with Achilles? Patroclus says no, and Achilles takes a moment, but he figures out that she wants one with Patroclus. Achilles asks, tensely, if she’s pregnant, then if Patroclus wants her to be. Achilles has s never been jealous before; he doesn’t know what to do with the emotion. Feeling that he’s been cruel to Achilles, Patroclus says no—and though Achilles carefully says it would be okay if Patroclus did want a child with her, he’s clearly relieved.
The fact that Achilles doesn’t ask if Patroclus wants children implies that Achilles takes Patroclus’s love for granted. He assumes that Patroclus will constantly prioritize him. So far, Achilles has been right. Earlier in the novel Achilles commented that no one had ever taken anything from him; Briseis’s offer to Patroclus, though made without any ill intent toward Achilles, now threatens Achilles sense of his own primacy for the first time.
Themes
