Who'd be Achilles? Were not all
the women, except Clytemnestra,
more likable? Ill fates befall
them, true, but surely even extra
ill fate awaits the son of Thetis
in the Greek underworld where ill he's
done will beset him, long as it is.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Apprenticed to physician, he
was offered private life, long, happy,
or short life, long in memory.
"Short life with glory," chose our chappie.
But even so, this gay young colt
hid himself in amongst the fillies
when from the battle he did bolt.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
As boy who could pass for a girl
Achilles was the chosen lover
who set Patroclus' heart awhirl,
but, during years spent undercover,
crawled under covers with a maid.
They had two children; but the sillies
let her name from the records fade.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
When that first war at last had ended,
Achilles must have been quite a sight
as maiden; muscular and splendid,
he'd give a man both fright and fight.
His parents gave him fifty ships
with fifty soldiers each. To kill he's
ready at last; his troops equips--
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
But long before his ships reach Troy
some of them wash up on the coast.
Town's army come to attack our boy.
Achilles wounds the chief his host
before misunderstanding's smoothed.
Oracle says he'll cure the ill he's
done. He'll not. Odysseus has soothed--
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
The wound Achilles gave the chief.
Then they sail on. The men soon grumble.
To quiet them, our boy turns thief,
sacks cities where no gang sought rumble,
takes noble Chryseis as sex slave
even though trying to force his will he's
caught with Prince Troilus, none can save.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Some say Chryseis was a queen;
more say a girl with golden hair.
The richest ransom they'd ever seen
her father brings to reclaim her care.
King Agamemnon, born accurst,
surely gives such a girl the willies;
of her abusers, might not be worst.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Briseis, noble though not royal,
spends the nights in Achilles' tent,
though that was not enough to spoil
his lust for Troilus. When he sent
for Chryseis, to return for ransom,
great love for her's claimed by Achilles.
Later he favors Ag, the handsome.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Nevertheless they're only women.
Chryseis for Briseis once traded,
Achilles sulks, his ships' sails trimming,
lust for fair fights (if any) faded.
He loved Briseis more than life!
He orders faithful silly-billies:
Turn back to his own home and wife.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
The war is going against the Greeks!
Odysseus sends to Achilles' truelove,
through all these years and months and weeks
while he's been bedding every new "love":
Patroclus, faithful as a dog:
Can anything cure the ill will he's
wallowing in like a bloated hog?
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
"I'm off to war," Patroclus says.
"We promised we would fight; let's do it."
Achilles clings to his sulking ways.
Patroclus goes to Troy, falls to it.
He's not too old to go out fighting.
Doing what he's come to do--to kill--he's
felled at last, though tough as a Titan.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Some say we know good things when they're past.
Word that he's lost Patroclus forever
stirs up Achilles to fight at last.
Cowardly yet still strong and clever,
he kills the river-god who complains
entire troops of slaughtered ghillies
choke river bed and block the plains.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Was he impervious to injuries,
or had he learned a way to heal them?
Though he was trained as healer, he's
portrayed as if he just didn't feel them.
Was it heart, liver, or lung, or heel
the arrow struck at the final kill? He's
never a healer, always a heel.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Dante said he saw him down in Hell,
bound in the Circle of Lust forever.
Shakespeare said he didn't fare so well,
claiming a victory while he never
fought, even in the final battle,
but chose another boy to fill his
bed, and would kill him should he tattle.
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
Socrates said that between two liars,
Odysseus is Achilles' better
because his knowing the truth inspires
him to unleash lies without fetter--
Say what?--What an odd Greek idea!
Apollodorus gives final thrill: he's
seen Achilles in Hell, bound to Medea!
Who'd ever want to play Achilles?
To be fair, most of the sources Robert Graves consulted did say some good things about Achilles, other than that he fought hard and dirty when he ran out of excuses. But not many, and I've never found them very convincing. Many men and women, on both sides, are portrayed as heroic in the Iliad. Achilles is portrayed as, at the very best, a spoiled brat; more often a monster of selfishness, lust, and violence.
It used to be obligatory for all writers to write things that showed that they'd read ancient Greek literature, if only in translations. A simplified, heavily censored, age-appropriate version of Graves' Greek Myths was given to my classmates and me in grade eight; I found the real book in the school library; it was my first real study of "adult" themes of vengeance and perversion, and, as such, not a favorite book but one that fascinated me. I still don't like ancient Greek literature because of the bizarre moral sense, the misogyny, and the preposterous claim that those savages in ancient Greece were the only people "civilized" enough to be "really human." I have, however, read some of it--beyond Graves.
For those who haven't, the unexplained characters in this poem are:
1. Clytemnestra: Married to King Agamemnon, who led a different army to the same war with Achilles, leaving one of his cousins to guard the palace and her. Clytemnestra might, some think, not have turned against her husband until she heard that he'd sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia as a burnt offering. Then she seduced her husband's cousin, offering to help make him king in Agamemnon's stead. When Agamemnon came home they prepared a nice bath to rest his weary feet, and when he was naked and relaxed they burst in and murdered him. Some say Clytemnestra was excused for this, in ancient Greek thinking, because she had to avenge her daughter.
2. Thetis: She was described as a nymph rather than a goddess, but as having Olympian "blood." Some say it was her refusal to have sex with Zeus or Apollo, while living with a human man as his wife, that kept her from being taken to Mount Olympus herself. The Iliad says she dipped the infant Achilles in the river Styx to give him invulnerability; other sources say it was fire. When Achilles was sulking in his tent and praying for Troy to win the war, he was praying to Thetis.
3. Agamemnon, himself: He hoped, by valor in battle, to atone for some part of the curse on his family that was believed to have been incurred by his father and uncle having had a sort of competition to see who could do more of the things ancient Greeks considered immoral. He was a good soldier who killed his share of Trojans. Some even claim that he might not have raped Chryseis or Briseis, though this is hard to believe. Most enslaved Greek women worked in homes or on farms and were supervised by the lady of the house, but the ones taken in war had no female supervisors or companions and no legitimate housework to do; if not being held for ransom they were sex slaves. Some claim he boasted about owning Chryseis and preferring her to his rightful wife. Everyone agrees that he raped Cassandra. In ancient Greek thinking that wasn't considered to be why he deserved what he got; rather, he deserved what he got simply because he was a son of Atreus. It was Atreus, not Agamemnon, who killed two infant sons of Agamemnon's uncle Thyestes and served them to Thyestes as roast pork. (Eating human flesh, especially of a relative, was believed to incur a lifelong curse; cannibals could atone only by dying.)
4. Troilus: A prince of Troy, but he was killed while visiting a Greek city in the company of Tenes, a son of Apollo. Sources differ only on whether Achilles murdered Troilus before or in the process of raping him. The crime occurred in the temple of Apollo. Where Tenes was at the time is not recorded. In ancient Greek thinking this made Achilles merely an "over-enthusiastic lover" and was never mentioned as a cause of the Trojan War. Some, however, say Achilles then fell in love with Troilus's sister Polyxena, because she looked like him, and demanded Polyxena in marriage after killing (or having his troops kill) their father in battle. Others say he demanded her as a bride for his son. There is some dispute about whether Polyxena participated in the killing of Achilles and then committed suicide, or demanded that the Greeks kill her as a princess rather than taking her home as a slave. Anyway she didn't survive.
5. Medea: She came in another story, supposed to have happened earlier. On learning that her husband had cheated on her she killed her own babies and served them to her husband as stew. Apollodorus thought she was the sort of partner-for-afterlife Achilles--why not Atreus?--deserved. In ancient Greek thinking what Medea did was wrong, but only to be expected, since most women were neither moral nor intelligent.
The mother of Achilles' children may have been just one of seven princesses and their slaves, or more than one; her or their names were given as Deidamia, Iphigenia, or Pyrrha. Some say Pyrrha ("redhead") was just a nickname for Deidamia, Iphigenia was an error, and Achilles and Deidamia were married legally, though secretly. Some say Pyrrha was what Achilles was called when disguised as a girl; some say he was called Cercysera or Aissa. Some say that Iphigenia was the mother of the children and Deidamia adopted them when Iphigenia was killed.
The Titans were legendary giants from the past. The ancient Greeks were not exactly midgets--going by skeletal remains, the average height was about 5'6-8" for men, 5'2-3" for women, which put them well ahead of the ancient Egyptians and probably the ancient Israelites--but they wrote as if they all wished they were taller, the way they believed their gods and ancestors were. The "giants" in their legendary past might have been 6' tall, like Greeks who grew up on a modern high-protein diet today. According to Wikipedia one skeleton said to have been a "very tall" man would have been 5'10".
The river-god's name was Scamander. One of the princes of Troy was called Scamandrus. So who knows.
Finally, although Cassandra is not really part of Achilles' story, she's certainly part of the Iliad. She was said to have red-blonde hair, grey eyes, and a "mannish figure" in youth, though motherhood filled out her figure. In the Iliad she has a juicy part a good actress could interpret in several ways, with plenty of nuance. Why Ellen/Elliot Page didn't want to play her, rather than Achilles...well...playing Cassandra would require acting talent, at least to choose a way to play the role and stick to it. Playing Achilles merely requires a person to act like a spoiled brat, and/or liar, coward, traitor, thief, and pedophile depending on how much time on stage Achilles gets.
And such were the foundations of our civilization...but without the Jewish, indigenous American, and Engllish Quaker foundations as well, our civilization would never have come as far as it has done.
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