Miller spent 10 years writing this book, yet her smooth prose conceals the painstaking research she has clearly put into it. 'There are no bargains between lions and men. When he faces Hector, the latter asks that his body be returned to his family, when Achilles is done with him. And only once he is dead, does the truly terrifying aspect of Achilles's nature come to the fore. We know Patroclus must die before Achilles. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream. This is what it will be, every day, without him. But Patroclus is too obscure to figure in prophecies, so he dreads the horror of life after Achilles's death: 'I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. Both know Achilles will never return from Troy: he is fated to die there. Miller ramps up the dramatic irony inherent in their story. Achilles has long known that he must choose between a short, glorious life, and a long one lived in obscurity. The sense of impending tragedy is never far away from these lovers. And when Briseis, the concubine Agamemnon later steals from Achilles, gradually learns Greek from Patroclus, 'her words were like new leather, still stiff and precise, not yet run together with use'. Iphigenia, sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease the goddess Artemis, is described as having 'a tripping name, the sound of goat hooves on rock, quick, lively, lovely'. Miller's prose is more poetic than almost any translation of Homer.

Achilles remains a godlike figure to Patroclus: 'Then I turned to look at him.

The story is told from the perspective of Patroclus who, exiled by his father to live in the court of Peleus, soon falls in love with his host's son, the superhuman Achilles: from childhood, his demi-god status means he is swifter, more beautiful and more skilled than all his peers.Īstonishingly to Patroclus's eyes, Achilles returns his love, and the two boys grow into adulthood and a love affair. Homer sets all this out in the opening line of The Iliad: 'Sing, muse, of the wrath of Achilles.' Even after death, his ghost still thirsts for blood, and Polyxena, a Trojan princess, has to be sacrificed at his tomb before the Greeks can sail home from Troy.īut in her novel, The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller has found the lover beneath the bloodshed and fury.

His revenge on Hector was merciless: not only did he kill the bulwark of Troy, he dishonoured the corpse, dragging Hector's body around the city three times.

The song of the achilles