The Iliad, Book 23

Summary, Book 23

There is no way that Book 23 could live up to the drama and intensity of Book 22 and the death of Hector.  And it doesn’t, although it is fascinating in its own way.

Achilles keeps his men, the Myrmidons, together In order to begin formally mourning Patroclus.  They continue dishonoring Hector’s corpse, and then his men try to convince him to wash the splattered blood off of himself.  He refuses to do so until Patroclus is buried, although he reluctantly agrees to eat something.  He then goes to the shore and moans and mourns until he is so exhausted that he falls to sleep.

In one of the eeriest moments of the Iliad, Patroclus appears to Achilles as a ghost while he sleeps:

 “You’re asleep, Achilles.                                              
You’ve forgotten me. While I was alive,                                                      
you never did neglect me. But now I’m dead.
So bury me as quickly as you can.
Then I can pass through the gates of Hades.
The spirits, ghosts of the dead, keep me away.
They don’t let me join them past the river.
So I wander aimlessly round Hades’ home
by its wide gates. Give me your hand, I beg you,
for I’ll never come again from Hades,        
once you’ve given me what’s due, my funeral fire.”

What?  Seriously, Patroclus?  I could (and have) accused Achilles of many flaws and traits, but forgetting about you is decidedly not one of them.  This is sad, from Achilles:

“Dear friend, why have you come to me here,
telling me everything I need to do?
I’ll carry out all these things for you,
attend to your request. But come closer.
Let’s hold each other one short moment more,
enjoying a shared lament together.”

He reaches out, but gets nothing but air.  Patroclus is gone.

“How sad!
It seems that even in Hades’ house,
some spirit or ghost remains, but our being
is not there at all. For this entire night
the ghost of poor Patroclus stood beside me,
weeping, lamenting, asking me to do things,
in every detail amazingly like him.”

This inspires him and the other Myrmidons to keep mourning until dawn.

When morning comes, Agamemnon sends out Achaeans to gather wood for Patroclus’s funeral pyre.  They reach the place Achilles has selected and they set the body down with the wood.  Achilles cuts a lock of his hair, which he had grown out to use as an offering to the River Spercheus (?) when he returned to his native land.  But since he will not be returning, he will cut it and leave it with Patroclus’s corpse.  Okay then.  Achilles and the Achaeans sacrifice animals on the funeral pyre.  Achilles also slices up the twelve Trojan men he took from the river alive and throws them in the pyre, too.  He’s a man of his word, that Achilles.  He also proclaims that he will feed Hector’s body to the dogs, but Apollo and Aphrodite protect his body.

But wait, we have a problem.  Patroclus’s pyre will not catch fire!  Achilles knows what to do.  He prays to the north and west winds, promising fine offerings if the winds will start the fire up.  Iris sends them the message, and they do as Achilles asks.  The fire starts up:

Just as a father mourns his son, when he burns his bones,
his newly married son, whose death brings parents
dreadful sorrow—that’s how Achilles kept crying then,
as he burned his companion’s bones, dragging himself
round and round the pyre, lamenting endlessly.

The next day, Achilles brings out a bunch of prizes and announces that they are prizes for the various funeral games.  There will be a chariot race, a boxing match, a wrestling match, races, duels, weight throwing, archery contests and spear throwing contests.  The prizes consist of mules, oxen, cauldrons and various other goods including, of course, women.

Diomedes wins the chariot race, but not without some help from Athena.  It’s sort of shaky, because Diomedes was winning but Apollo knocked his whip out of his hand which allowed Eumelus to pass him.  Athena gives him back his whip and then snaps Eumelus’s chariot yoke, causing him to be thrown from the chariot and seriously injured.  There’s lots of drama in this race, with Antilochus basically fouling Menelaus.  Menelaus is fuming.  There is some debate over the legitimate first and second prize winner, but Diomedes ends up winning.

They describe some of the other games and there is some drama but I’m not going to bother with the details because I do not think they are especially relevant.  At the end of the section, the spear-throwing contest is about to start but Achilles stands up to speak to Agamemnon:

 “Son of Atreus,                                                          
we know how you surpass all others,
how in the spear throw you’re much stronger,
better than anyone. So take this prize,
as you go to your hollow ships. Let’s give
the spear to warrior Meriones, if your heart
is pleased with that. It’s what I’d like to do.”

Aww, he gives the prize to Agamemnon without even having to compete.  They’re buds again!  And that’s the end of the penultimate book of the Iliad.

Reading Notes

As filler chapters go, this is a good one.  It’s clearly meant to serve as a break between the dramatic climax of the work (the death of Hector) and the conclusion.  I could have done without a lot of the petty details of the funeral games, but the beginning when Patroclus’s ghost appears is both moving and creepy.

Stay tuned for the conclusion!