 | The Song of Achilles reveals the Greek hero Achilles through the viewpoint of his beloved Patroclus. Drawn from the Iliad and other Greek myths, the novel breathes life into its three-dimensional characters and we live the tale alongside them: Patroclus’ exile; training with the centaur Chiron alongside Achilles; fearsome Thetis trying to protect her son Achilles; being recruited for the Trojan War by cunning Odysseus; the political jockeying among kings and heroes during the war; Patroclus’ death and Achilles’ outsized grief; Achilles taking brutal revenge against the Trojan, Prince Hector. The vivid prose makes this a story a reader can live while reading. |
We meet Patroclus as an awkward child:
Quickly I became a disappointment: small, slight. I was not fast. I was not strong. I could not sing. The best that could be said of me was that I was not sickly.
Patroclus carries this low opinion of himself into manhood, always feeling inadequate, especially in comparison with the semi-divine Achilles.
Quickly I became a disappointment: small, slight. I was not fast. I was not strong. I could not sing. The best that could be said of me was that I was not sickly.
Patroclus carries this low opinion of himself into manhood, always feeling inadequate, especially in comparison with the semi-divine Achilles.
 | Knowing that his father, the king, disdains him. The other boys take advantage. Patroclus fights back against one of his bullies: His head thudded dully against stone, and I saw the surprised pop of his eyes. The ground around him began to bleed. I stared, my throat closing in horror at what I had done. I had not seen the death of a human before. Yes, the bulls, and the goats, even the bloodless gasping of fish. . . . But I had not seen this: the rattle of it, the choke and scrabble. He is disowned by his harsh father for the murder, and sent to foster with Achilles’ father. |
 | From the moment he meets Achilles he is smitten, but also jealous: In the huge hall, his beauty shone like a flame, vital and bright, drawing my eye against my will. His mouth was a plump bow, his nose an aristocratic arrow. When he was seated, his limbs did not skew as mine did, but arranged themselves with perfect grace, as if for a sculptor. [The other boys] crowded him like dogs in their eagerness, tongues lolling. I watched all this from my place at a corner table, bread crumpled in my fist. The keen edge of my envy was like flint, a spark away from fire. Patroclus resists his attraction, but poorly: His presence was like a stone in my shoe, impossible to ignore. His skin was the color of just-pressed olive oil, smooth as polished wood, without the scabs and blemishes that covered the rest of us. |
To everyone’s surprise, Achilles names Patroclus his companion. Patroclus is unable to resist Achilles’ charms and is soon enamored with the nimble-footed warrior.
Their first kiss ignites Patroclus’ passion so strongly, he pulls back and Achilles storms away, embarrassed and hurt. Much later that they are able to consummate their mutual attraction:
I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movement of his lips. It was a miracle.
The love they share is beautifully described, and blooms into deep, mutual devotion.
Their first kiss ignites Patroclus’ passion so strongly, he pulls back and Achilles storms away, embarrassed and hurt. Much later that they are able to consummate their mutual attraction:
I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movement of his lips. It was a miracle.
The love they share is beautifully described, and blooms into deep, mutual devotion.
 | Thetis, a sea-goddess, is Achille’s mother. She tries to discourage their love and becomes Patroclus’ antagonist throughout the novel. He describes her fearsome presence: The doors blew open in a fury of flying splinters. Thetis stood in the doorway, hot as living flame. Her divinity swept over us all, singeing our eyes, blackening the broken edges of the door. I could feel it pulling at my bones, sucking at the blood in my veins as if it would drink me. I cowered, as men were made to do. |
 | The two men are ultimately drawn into the Trojan war. Patroclus still believes himself an inferior warrior; Achilles is regarded as a hero of the ages. Our world was one of blood, and the honor it won; only cowards did not fight. For a prince, there was no choice. You warred and won, or you warred and died. Achilles is a wonder on the battlefield, but his hot pride leads him into conflict with the Greek leader Agamemnon. Achilles refuses to fight until the king apologizes for slighting his honor, and many Greeks die as a result. |
 | Hoping to protect the Greeks and his lover’s reputation, Patroclus volunteers to go into battle wearing Achilles’ armor. He learns that he’s no longer a small, weak child: I imagine how Achilles would do it, feet planted to earth, back muscles twisting. He would see a gap in that impenetrable armor, or he would make one. But I am not Achilles. What I see is something else, my only chance. They are almost upon me. I cast the spear. He successfully knocks his opponent from the chariot, and has a moment of battle glory. |
He’s later killed by the Trojan hero Prince Hector:
My hands flurry in the air like startled birds, trying to halt the spear’s relentless movement towards my belly. But I am weak as a baby against Hector’s strength, and my palms give way, unspooling in ribbons of red. The spearhead submerges in a sear of pain so great that my breath stops, a boil of agony that bursts over my whole stomach. My head drops back against the ground, and the last image I see is of Hector, leaning seriously over me, twisting his spear inside me as if he is stirring a pot. The last thing I think is: Achilles.
My hands flurry in the air like startled birds, trying to halt the spear’s relentless movement towards my belly. But I am weak as a baby against Hector’s strength, and my palms give way, unspooling in ribbons of red. The spearhead submerges in a sear of pain so great that my breath stops, a boil of agony that bursts over my whole stomach. My head drops back against the ground, and the last image I see is of Hector, leaning seriously over me, twisting his spear inside me as if he is stirring a pot. The last thing I think is: Achilles.
 | Because he hasn’t been properly buried, Patroclus lingers as a ghost, witnessing the rest of the war, including Achilles’ vicious revenge against the Trojan, Prince Hector. When Achilles dies, their ashes are joined, but the grave marker is only for the hero Achilles. Patroclus tries in vain to convince someone to put a marker up with his name so he can join his beloved in the afterworld: Do not let it be so. Do not leave me here without him. |
The final scene of The Song of Achilles brought me to tears.
This is ultimately a love story between two very different men, whom fate brings together and then rips apart. But their love—thanks to an unlikely ally—proves to be stronger than death.
This is ultimately a love story between two very different men, whom fate brings together and then rips apart. But their love—thanks to an unlikely ally—proves to be stronger than death.
Read more about Greek myth: Ithaca, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Medusa, Sirens Empowered, #MeTooMedusa, Justice, The Spring Maiden, 15 Healing Deities, Water Gods, Divine Darkness
