“The Iliad” Books 18–21 Entry
This weeks entry to me is very bipolar as I am discussing two polar opposite characters: Achilles and Hector.
Firstly, and the most important, Achilles.
Reading these four chapters made me feel soo bad for Achilles. Losing people is always hard but losing a person that’s basically your twin? That’s a different type of pain. I can only imagine how I’d feel if I lost my “twin”, Jazzmyne who is also my older sister.
Yes, I have philotes for several other people which include: my boyfriend, two younger sisters, grandparents, and my AP Calculus girls.
I even feel philotes for my lost twin brothers. Being born as a triplet and having brothers, Dwayne and Dwight, who didn’t make it out of the hospital with me was hard as I grew up always feeling like something was missing. I believe that it would’ve been so cool having brothers to protect me, even though my sisters and I were raised like boys(my grandparents raised three boys before taking all four of us girls in), and help me when it comes to dealing with other guys.
I’m so lucky to have such an amazing sister like Jazzmyne. We get into big fights sometimes but we always end up being there when we both need it. This relationship between the two of us gave me a true perspective on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Thinking about the way Achilles mourned really touched me as both my sister and I had moments like this as well.
None of us died of course but we both came very close to it several times. The two of us have had a combined total of over 8 surgeries (5 of which are mine) so we understand how it feels when you’re about to lose the other one. We’ve been on each others hospital bed sides more times than we can count and have cried so many tears that we could fill the Connecticut River at least three times.
Good thing is that we had people like our other siblings, grandparents, and several others to hold us up when we’re ready to fall. I’m glad Achilles had people too. Shout-out to Antilochus, Agamemnon (shocker!), Menelaus, Odysseus, Nestor(real funny…), Idomeneus, and Phoenix for making sure that Achilles was okay.
I’m glad that Agamemnon finally came to his senses and not only gave Briseis back but also was there to support Achilles during his healing process. I’m upset with Nestor because he’s the person that I’m blaming for Patroclus’ death. Like I said before, and will continue to say, he should’ve just kept his lips shut and not have put the idea for Patroclus to join the battle in that poor boy’s naive head.
Back to the point though, Achilles went through several emotions as he began his mourning process for his friend. The most important of these were revenge and regret. As he had Patroclus’ body cleaned and prepped for burial, he refused to have him finally laid to rest until he killed Hector. What surprised me was regret as I never thought Achilles was actually going to grow up and realize his own fault in things.
Now, I’m not blaming him for the death of his friend but I am blaming him for his actions following the quarrel between him and Agamemnon. Making the decision to seclude himself was selfish as he was too upset to realize how much the army needed him. The war could’ve been won, and Patroclus could still be alive, if Achilles had just done the mature thing and kept fighting for his own reasons instead of abandoning those who needed him the most.
Luckily, he finally sat down with Agamemnon and got past their issues (and got Briseis back in the process). Although he got Briseis back, he was more worried about something bigger than that as he wished that Briseis was dead. With this new maturity of his, he finally realized that being angry over a girl was silly and cost him his closest friend. As Thetis became involved yet again, she stepped up as a mother and got her son new armor after the Trojans desecrated both his friend’s corpse and his armor. After begging divine blacksmith Hephaestus for this, he have her a breastplate, helmet, and most importantly: a shield.
On this shield were several images and carvings that included: two cities, constellations, pastures/vineyards, dancing children, and a King’s estate which is one of the many foreshadows depicted.
Starting with the two cities, both Greece and Troy are the two cities depicted on the shield. Greece is filled with joy as there are dancing children and happy people marching all through the streets. On the other side is Troy which is surrounded by an army. The army is deciding whether they should take the riches in front of them or destroy the city even more to get more riches. Two armies are also fighting along the riverbank and sending even more people to the underworld as they drag their bodies.
The estate depicted is Agamemnon’s which is just another foreshadow of the Greek army’s success. People are on the estate picking grapes, rejoicing over barley, and preparing an ox for an upcoming feast. Learning this made me both mad and glad. I’m happy the Achaeans won but I feel like that rejoicing King should be Achilles instead of Agamemnon. This unfortunately can’t happen as Achilles already made his choice of glory over royalty.
Back to the shield, I believe the author introduces these depictions to remind the readers that even though they are going through a rough patch, the Achaean army will still reign victorious in the end. This relates to the rest of the epic as it gives a sneak peek as to what is about to happen.
Now unto the soon-to-be less fortunate, Hector.
He’s been killing it recently. With Zeus on his side (for now), him and his fellow warriors of Troy have been giving the Achaeans a run for their money( and having them run back to their ships). Even when he was literally knocked down by a boulder, he still got back up and was there for his troops, unlike someone we know *cough* *cough* *Achilles*. All of this changed once Patroclus speaks his dying words. As Hector stood over the dying body of Patroclus feeling like he was on top of the world, Patroclus made sure to warn him that “you’re next” which surprisingly didn’t humble him.
In my eyes, Hector is cool and all but I feel like he just needs to tone it down. He’s getting way too cocky and this new confidence is gonna be one of the reasons why he’s going to be dragged all around the walls of his kingdom.
As the passage says back in book 11, “the Achaians gladly drew breath again after their flight from great Hektor(Line 327).” There was a point where he was highly favored which caused him to have an aristeia so great that he put fear into the Achaean hearts. As he’s still “favored”, he’s beginning to forget that his true opponent is destined to destroy him and even his son.
With this new behavior, I do feel like he deserves to be injured but not die. I don’t want Hector to die as I see him as innocent. Yes, he killed Patroclus but that wasn’t up to him to even do that in the first place. Hector is simply just a piece on Zeus’ chess board of the Trojan War so wishing for his death is inhumane to me. Knowing about how his son is going to be killed to is also inhumane as he didn’t deserve it. I get the reasoning but how heartless and angry must you be to murder a child?
I am eager to see Achilles kill him as I know it will be full of details and make me truly understand who Achilles really is. I’ve been dying to hear all about the release of his menis since the day that I learned what this term even meant. Achilles got so mad that he literally fought a river. My jaw literally dropped reading this like why does a river want to fight a human?
Speaking more about Menis, what in tarnation is going on with the gods? Especially Zeus…
One minute, he’s angry that people are getting involved and now we have them watching from the sidelines like the war is just some measly little high school football game. The only issue with these “fans” is the fact that Apollo can’t sit still. He’s so involved that he’s literally disguising himself as soldiers just to be an instigator. And then we have Poseidon…
I truly do not understand why Poseidon is even in this mess when it has nothing to do with him other than the fact that his grandson was killed. but even before this, he was still Hera’s little partner. I can’t wait for this partnership to come back and bite him because working alongside Hera never goes well, even for Zeus.
Let’s see who karma is gonna hit first people……
