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Mon. July 22

These books provide an interlude from the main action, I think, and build to the climatic duel between Hector and Achilles.

In Book XVII there is much back and forth fighting over the body of Patroclus, both sides seeking to claim him and his armor as a prize. Ultimately, Hector claims the armor but the Greeks take the body back to the ships. It always seems ironic to me when additional lives are sacrificed to recover a corpse, but this is the warrior ethic demanding that no fallen companion can be “left behind,” which persists even in modern warfare. The Greeks and Trojans, of course, both believed the soul could not rest if the body was not accorded its proper rites.

Book XVIII returns the focus to Achilles’ pure grief for Patroclus, in contrast to Hector’s “tainted” victory. Achilles is devastated and casts himself to the ground, covering himself in ashes, giving a real sense that he wishes he had died instead of his friend. Certainly his bond with Patroclus was the most important of his life, and the depth of his grief has always given rise to speculation that they may have been lovers, but there is no real evidence of that in the poem. Though bisexuality was common in ancient Greece (see the novels of Mary Renault) it seems more likely their friendship epitomized the brotherhood between soldiers. Alexander the Great is known to have compared himself and his boyhood friend, companion, and possible lover, Hephaestion, to Achilles and Patroclus.

Iris, the messenger of Hera, orders Achilles to show himself and rally the troops. Only then is the body of Patroclus finally recovered. Thetis goes to Hephaestus and asks the blacksmith of the gods to fashion new armor for her son, including the marvelous shield of Achilles — marvelous, because Homer describes more engraved detail than a shield could possibly contain, showing the entire compass of war and peace, from farm and town life to strife and war, to the tumbling acrobats of Knossos in Crete. I think the shield gives us the gods’ perspective that war is simply a necessary part of life, the spinning whole that must be held in balance.