Summary
At Peleus’s palace, Thetis waits for Achilles' and Patroclus's return alongside the mortal men. No place has been set at the dais for Patroclus, but Achilles demands one. Peleus declares to his palace that Queen Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus, has been abducted by Paris, prince of Troy, son of Priam. Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, Menelaus’s brother, is asking men to wage war on Troy. Peleus has agreed to send a delegation of men from Phthia, as well as all men who were suitors of Helen, sworn to protect her if she is taken—Patroclus must go to war. Achilles believes the oath was undone when his father disowned him (the oath was taken by Menoitiades, which is no longer Patroclus’s name). Peleus asks Achilles to lead the Phthians, as do men sent by Agamemnon, but he is unconvinced. That night, in bed, Achilles promises Achilles that if Patroclus must go, he will go with him.
The next morning, Achilles has disappeared. Patroclus panics as he searches the palace for him. He learns that Achilles was taken by his mother in the night. Many moon cycles pass as Patroclus misses and mourns for Achilles, who he believes Thetis has taken beneath the sea to be raised as a god. Patroclus supplicates himself before Peleus, who tells him Achilles has been taken to the island Scryos. Patroclus sets out after him immediately, and on Scryos he meets the pretty and loud Princess Deidameia, daughter of King Lycomedes. Deidameia does not help him find Achilles, but she invites him to eat dinner in her hall that evening.
At dinner, Deidameia proudly dances with her women. At the end of the dance Patroclus recognizes one of the dancing women as Achilles himself, performing as a woman, going by the name of Pyrrha (“fire-hair”) and declaring Patroclus to be his husband. Deidameia screams and cries, saying that she herself is married to Achilles and has lain with him. Thetis interrupts the scene; while it is true she has married Deidameia to Achilles, she considers Deidameia foolish and ordinary, merely a means to protect her son from going to war. Deidameia explains that she is pregnant, and Patroclus, feeling hollow, leaves.
Achilles runs after him, saying that he only slept with Deidameia because Thetis promised to tell Patroclus where he was. Patroclus wants to berate Achilles for his naivete in believing his mother, but his anger fades—Achilles’ trust is as much a part of him as his hands or his feet. When Achilles apologizes, Patroclus says there is nothing to forgive.
King Lycomedes understands that Achilles will not return to Deidameia, but he does make Achilles swear that her child will have Achilles’ name. Achilles and Patroclus share a night of passion to make up for their weeks apart; only in the morning does Patroclus remember that Thetis did all of this to hide Achilles from war.
Achilles and Patroclus spend days in peace, Achilles in disguise as Pyrrha whenever they’re around others, Patroclus playing the role of Pyrrha’s husband. Achilles’ chilliness to Deidameia makes Patroclus feel sorry for her. One morning, while Achilles practices spears in secret, Deidameia sends guards to fetch Patroclus. She calls him ugly, a coward, a half-moron, and slaps him, then begins crying. She is being sent away to hide her pregnancy. She tries to seduce him, taking off her clothes and asking if she is beautiful (Patroclus says yes). Patroclus does have sex with her, mostly to appease her, though he “will not say [he] was not aroused.” When they are done, satisfied but unfulfilled, Patroclus finds Achilles and holds him close, almost believing that the day has been a dream.
Deidameia leaves; weeks pass. Achilles and Patroclus grow impatient, missing Pelion and his mother’s lyre. When a ship arrives, Patroclus is found by Odysseus, who acts as an emissary for Agamemnon, alongside King Diomedes of Argos, another suitor of Helen’s, much coarser and more warlike than Odysseus. When Odysseus asks to see Scryos’s famous dancing women, he tries to tempt Achilles into revealing himself by offering womanly gifts, which Achilles happily enjoys; however, when a horn is blown outside, Achilles reveals himself by grabbing a sword and shield to join the men.
Odysseus and Diomedes want Achilles to come to Troy. Odysseus, called polutropos—the man of many turnings—has heard a prophecy from the gods (implied to be Athena) that if Achilles does not come to Troy, he will grow old in obscurity. He begins to convince Achilles, but Thetis interrupts. At Odysseus’s urging, Achilles asks Thetis to reveal the prophecy she knows: If he goes to Troy, he will die a young man there. Achilles must choose between a short life of fame and a long life of averageness.
That night, in private, as Patroclus muses that he could not bear to see Achilles die, Achilles admits that he could not bear to grow old and weak and obscure. Achilles will go to Troy; when asked to come with him, Patroclus says yes.
The next morning, Patroclus goes to great lengths to seek out Thetis, who reveals that Achilles will not die until Hector does. Achilles is heartened by Patroclus trying to steal time from the fates, asking, “Why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me.”
Achilles and Patroclus leave Scryos, telling Lycomedes that Thetis will raise Achilles’ son when he is born. As they sail away, Odysseus asks if Achilles and Patroclus aren’t a bit old to be sharing a bedroll, which is common enough among young boys, but perhaps a shameful rumor as they head to war. Achilles is unbothered by Patroclus’s worry about his honor—he is Aristos Achaion, the best of the Greeks. Let the men talk. Odysseus recounts the names and histories of many of the men they will fight alongside, including Menelaus and Agamemnon’s unfortunate lineage, dating back to Tantalus, son of Zeus. Achilles, in private, compliments Patroclus’s body, adoring him; as he lies awake after, Patroclus knows he would rather kill himself than miss Achilles the way prophecy says he must.
Analysis
With the call to war, boyhood is over but manhood has not truly begun. When his love is taken from him, Patroclus supplicates himself before Peleus, begging to know where Thetis has taken Achilles. This mirrors Priam’s supplication at the end of the text, when he begs Achilles in person for the return of his beloved son’s body. Patroclus believes that Peleus wouldn’t have told him Achilles was on Scryos if he hadn’t presented himself as a suppliant; perhaps this means that if Priam had not supplicated himself, Achilles would not have returned Hector’s corpse to be properly honored.
To prevent her son from flying prematurely into manhood, Thetis hides Achilles in womanhood, placing him among the single women of Scryos. Achilles is not embarrassed by “being” a woman, and ridicule doesn't bother him. Disguise is a common feature in myth—the gods disguise themselves as animals to seduce mortals; Odysseus presents himself as a poor man in his own home in the Odyssey—but once Odysseus and Diomedes arrive on Scryos, it becomes clear to Patroclus that Achilles’ honor is threatened here. He explains that “It was one thing to wear a dress out of necessity, another thing for the world to know of it. Our people reserved their ugliest names for men who acted like women; lives were lost over such insults.” Achilles’ straightforwardness seems to immunize him from this concern, at least somewhat; he is not a woman, he is just Pyrrha, a lovely master of dance (and spear, when he gets to take the skirt off).
Patroclus’s reunion with Achilles is joyful, and their sexual encounter is one of relief. His other sexual encounter in this series of chapters is with Deidameia. Patroclus’s first prolonged interaction with a woman in the novel is one of sexual confusion and pity. He finds sex with Deidameia arousing but ultimately unsatisfying—it isn’t that Patroclus likes to have sex with men; Patroclus likes to have sex with Achilles. It is the love that matters, not the carnal desires. This is perhaps why he can later imagine a future with Briseis, though that, too, feels hollow and Achilles-less.
This section introduces the swiftness of Achilles’ fate, and how Patroclus both misunderstands and correctly interprets the prophecy of his love’s death. Achilles will die early, and Patroclus engages in a kind of pre-grief, imagining his room is a tomb and that life without Achilles will be gray and lonely. His anticipation of Achilles’ death prevents him from considering his own place in destiny, as well as his own substantially higher risk of dying in combat. It turns out that his pre-grief is fair, though; despite dying before Achilles, Patroclus does linger on after him in a way most stories of the Iliad don’t describe, trapped as a formless, un-honored spirit.
“He’s done nothing to me,” Achilles begins to say jokingly about Hector. Why would he kill a man who hasn’t threatened him personally? Chiron has taught him better than that. In an example of dramatic irony, this joke points sadly to exactly what Hector must do to fulfill the prophecy: take Patroclus from Achilles.
