Chapter summary
At dawn, Thetis reaches the ships with the gifts of Hephaestus and finds Achilles embracing the body of Patroclus, weeping aloud, with many companions around him. She takes him by the hand and tells them to leave the dead man, because he was vanquished by the will of the gods, and to receive the armor that no mortal man ever wore. She sets the armor before him, and it rings. A tremor seizes the Myrmidons, and none dares look at it straight on. Achilles, seeing it, feels his wrath enter him still more, his eyes flashing a dreadful glare, but he takes joy in holding the gifts of the god.
He tells his mother that the armor is the work of immortals and that he will arm himself, but he fears that flies will enter the wounds of Patroclus's body, breed worms and spoil it. Thetis reassures him: she will drive off the flies, and even if the body lies for a year, the flesh will remain firm or even better. She orders him to summon the Achaean heroes, give up his wrath against Agamemnon, and arm himself at once. She infuses him with great courage and drips ambrosia and red nectar into Patroclus's nostrils, so that the flesh will not decay.
Achilles walks the beach shouting and rouses the heroes. Even those who always stayed by the ships, the helmsmen and the stewards, go to the assembly, because Achilles has reappeared after so long away from battle. Diomedes and Odysseus arrive limping, leaning on their spears, because they still have wounds; Agamemnon comes last, wounded by Coon, son of Antenor.
Achilles rises and asks Agamemnon whether it was better for the two of them to be enraged with devouring anger over a girl. He wishes that Artemis had killed her with an arrow on the day when, destroying Lyrnessus, he took her; thus so many Achaeans would not have bitten the dust in the hands of their enemies while he remained in wrath. Only Hector and the Trojans gained by it, and the Achaeans will remember the quarrel between the two for a long time. He sets the past aside, mastering his heart out of necessity, and says he is ending his wrath, because it does not suit him to remain forever enraged. He asks Agamemnon to set the Achaeans in battle order, so that he may measure himself again against the Trojans and see whether they want to spend the night by the ships. The Achaeans rejoice because he has given up his wrath.
Agamemnon speaks seated, without going into the middle, because it is hard to hear and to speak amid the noise of many; he addresses Achilles, but wants all the Argives to hear him. He says that the Achaeans have often reproached him, but that the fault is not his: Zeus, Moira and the Erinys that roams the air cast a savage blindness on his judgment in the assembly, on the day he took Achilles' prize. Ate, the august daughter of Zeus, passes above the heads of men without touching the ground and blinds everyone, even Zeus himself, who was deceived by Hera on the day Alcmene was to give birth to Heracles. Zeus swore that the descendant of his blood born on that day would rule over his neighbors, and Hera hastened the birth of Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, and delayed Alcmene's. Zeus, wounded, seized Ate by the hair, swore that she would never again return to Olympus, and hurled her from heaven among men; afterward he groaned whenever he saw his son in the labors that Eurystheus imposed on him. The same happened to him, Agamemnon says, when Hector was destroying the Achaeans by the ships: he could not forget the Ate that had blinded him first. Since he erred and Zeus took away his judgment, he wishes to make amends and offer compensation beyond measure. He offers all the gifts that Odysseus had promised in his name in Achilles' tent, and asks Achilles to rise and rouse the army or, if he prefers, to wait until the squires bring the gifts.
Achilles answers that Agamemnon should decide: give the gifts, as is fitting, or keep them. Now they must turn to the battle, without delay, because much remains to be done, and each man must fight with Achilles before his eyes again, in the front, cutting down the Trojan ranks. Odysseus contradicts him: do not send the Achaeans to battle fasting, because the fighting will be long when the ranks clash and a god breathes vigor into both sides, and strength lies in bread and wine, for no one can endure the whole day without eating. He asks that the people disperse for the meal, that Agamemnon bring the gifts to the middle of the assembly, so that all may see them and Achilles may rejoice, that he swear before the Argives never to have mounted Briseis's bed, as is customary between men and women, and that afterward he console Achilles with a feast in the tent, so that Achilles is not left without the due reparation. To Agamemnon he says that he will be more just with the others afterward, because a king who makes amends is not to be blamed, since he was the first to be angered. Agamemnon agrees: he will swear without perjury, asks Achilles to wait, orders Odysseus to choose young men to bring the gifts and the women, and orders Talthybius to prepare a boar for Zeus and the Sun.
Achilles refuses again: it would be better done during a pause in the war, when his fury was less. Now the men whom Hector overpowered lie torn apart, and Odysseus and Agamemnon propose food; he would have the Achaeans fight fasting and dine at sunset, once the shame is avenged. Until then no food or drink passes his throat, because his friend lies in the tent, wounded by bronze, with feet turned toward the door, and the companions mourn him; he thinks only of death, blood and groans. Odysseus answers that Achilles surpasses him with the spear, but that he surpasses Achilles in counsel, being older and knowing more. The satiety of battle comes quickly, he says, and the harvest is small when Zeus tilts the balance; the belly does not allow one to mourn a dead man the whole day, and many fall every day. The dead must be buried and mourned for a day, and those who survive must eat and drink so as to fight again with more vigor, and no one should wait for another summons. He leads to Agamemnon's tent the sons of Nestor, and also Meges, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes and Melanippus.
Everything is done quickly. Seven tripods, twenty cauldrons, twelve horses, seven women skilled in works and, as the eighth, Briseis of lovely cheeks, along with ten talents of gold weighed out by Odysseus, are set in the middle of the assembly. Agamemnon rises with Talthybius at his side, who holds the boar; he cuts the first hairs from the victim, raises his hands to Zeus and swears, before the Argives in silence, by Zeus, the Earth, the Sun and the Erinyes, that he never laid a hand on Briseis, neither for the bed nor for any other reason, and that she remained untouched in his tent; if he lies, may the gods send him the evils they give to perjurers. He cuts the boar's throat, and Talthybius hurls it into the sea. Achilles says, standing, that Zeus gives great blindnesses to men: the son of Atreus would not have stirred his heart nor taken the girl against his will had Zeus not wanted the death of many Achaeans. He orders them to dine and then return to the battle, and dissolves the assembly.
The Myrmidons carry the gifts to Achilles' tent, settle the women and lead the horses to the herd. Briseis, as beautiful as golden Aphrodite, sees Patroclus torn to pieces and throws herself upon him, tearing at her breast, her neck and her face. She weeps that she left him alive when she went out of the tent and finds him dead on her return; she saw the husband her parents gave her die, and three brothers before the city, and Patroclus did not let her weep when Achilles killed her husband and sacked the city of Mynes: he promised to make her the lawful wife of Achilles, to carry her in the ships to Phthia and celebrate the wedding among the Myrmidons. Therefore she mourns him without ceasing, because he was always gentle. The other women moan with her, for Patroclus, who is the pretext, and each one for her own troubles.
The Achaean elders gather around Achilles, asking him to eat; he refuses and asks that no one urge him to eat before sunset. He dismisses the other kings; Agamemnon and Menelaus, Odysseus, Nestor, Idomeneus and Phoenix remain, and they try to console him, but he will not be consoled before he enters the bloody mouth of war. He recalls the friend who used to prepare his dinner when the Achaeans rushed to war, and says that his heart is fasting from food and drink out of longing for Patroclus. No worse evil could strike him, not even news of his father's death, who perhaps now weeps in Phthia for lack of such a son, while he fights the Trojans in a foreign land because of hateful Helen; nor news of his son Neoptolemus, reared on Scyros, if he still lives. He had hoped to die alone at Troy and that Patroclus would return to Phthia and take the boy from Scyros, to show him the wealth, the servants and the palace; now he thinks Peleus has already died, or lives little, awaiting the sad news. The elders too groan, each recalling what he left at home.
Seeing them weep, Zeus takes pity and tells Athena that she has forgotten Achilles: he is by the ships lamenting his companion, and the others have gone to dine while he remains fasting. He orders her to drip nectar and ambrosia into his breast so that hunger does not reach him. Athena, who already wanted this, descends like a swooping bird with wide wings and a shrill voice, does what Zeus commanded, and returns to her father's palace.
The Achaeans come out of the ships like snowflakes under the breath of Boreas, with gleaming helmets, shields, breastplates and ash spears; the brightness touches the sky, the earth laughs under the bronze, and the roar of feet rises. Achilles arms himself in the middle of them: his teeth grind, his eyes shine like fire and an unbearable pain enters his heart; furious against the Trojans, he puts on the gifts of the god. He first puts on the greaves, then the breastplate, hangs the sword with silver studs, takes up the shield, whose brightness reaches far like that of the moon, and which the narrator compares to the light of a bonfire seen by sailors carried off by a storm, and sets on the helmet with its crest of gold, which shines like a star. He tries on the armor, and it lifts him like wings. He takes from its case the ash spear from Pelion that Chiron gave to Peleus, which no other Achaean can brandish. Automedon and Alcimedon yoke the horses; Automedon mounts with the whip, and Achilles behind him, armed and resplendent like Hyperion.
Achilles addresses his father's horses, Xanthus and Balius, children of Podarge: let them bring their charioteer back, sated with war, and not leave him dead as they left Patroclus. Xanthus answers from beneath the yoke, head bowed and mane falling to the ground, for Hera has given him voice: today they will save him, but the day of ruin is near, and the blame will not be theirs, but that of a great god and of mighty Moira. They were not slow when the Trojans stripped Patroclus: the best of the gods, son of Leto, killed him in the front rank and gave glory to Hector. They would run with the breath of Zephyr, the lightest, but it is fated that Achilles be overcome by a god and by a man. The Erinyes cut off his voice. Achilles, very angry, asks why he prophesies death to him, when there is no need: he knows well that his destiny is to perish there, far from his father and mother, but he will not stop before sating the Trojans with war. He lets out a cry and drives the horses with unbroken hooves to the front ranks.
Analysis
The book shows the end of wrath as a public decision, not as a change of feeling. Achilles says he is ending his wrath against Agamemnon and, in the same speech, orders war; in putting on the armor, the verb he used for the wrath that should not last forever reappears in another direction, against the Trojans. What changes is the target.
Agamemnon and Achilles resort to the same explanation for the quarrel: Zeus, Moira and Ate blinded the king, and Zeus wanted the death of many Achaeans. The poem sets the two speeches side by side and places between them Odysseus, with the practical argument that the army must eat, and Briseis, whose grief for Patroclus records what war has taken from her. The book closes with the horse that announces death and the hero who already knew it: the prophecy tells Achilles nothing; it only serves for him to say aloud that he will go anyway.
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