THE FALL OF TROY: Part Seven

THE FALL OF TROY

by Philip Womack

Part Seven: Achilles

It is time, now, to think about Achilles. 

Nobody knows what his name means. His mother, the sea goddess Thetis, tried to make him immortal when he was a baby, by dipping him into the river Styx. Whether he cried or not is not recorded; what exactly Thetis was thinking is not recorded either. She must have been distracted, as she simply lowered the child into the black waves, holding him by the ankle; this meant, of course, that this untouched part was vulnerable.

Like so many of the heroes, Achilles was sent away to be schooled by a centaur, Chiron, in the mountains and the woods. The young Achilles loved these days more than anything. When he stood on the beach at Troy, and looked at the smoking ruins of the city, it was Mount Pelion that he remembered. When he lay with Briseis in his tent, it was the centaur's horsey flank that came back to his mind. He loved racing across the broad plains, faster than the deer. He loved sitting up into the night and looking at the stars, whilst the centaur would tell him their names and meanings, and would teach him how to strum the lyre. He loved the sad, strange songs that the centaurs sang, sounds and meanings that no human could ever capture.

He always knew he was going to be a fighter. It was inside him, like a song that was about to be written. Or it was like an ache, that could never be healed. 

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When the call came for the Greek armies to muster at Aulis, Achilles's mother sent him to Scyros, to be hidden among the princesses. He did not want to go, but he loved his mother, and she wept.

But still, though he had promised his mother he would not fight, when Odysseus came looking for him, Achilles could hardly help himself: the glittering of the swords spoke to him in a language he understood. He knew what he was doing when he caught the ball thrown to him. He had known from the moment Odysseus had entered the room.

Everything so far has been building up to Achilles. Every link in the chain leads up to this person, this name, this sword, these hands. Hands that could stroke the cheek of a corpse, and hands that could help an old man down from a mule; hands that could slay fifty sons.

When the Greek armies neared the city of Troy, and could see it rising up above them on the hill, Achilles leaned forwards on the prow, and laughing, held his thumb and forefinger out, and squinted between them. And with a tiny movement, he crushed the towers of Troy.

Who can understand Achilles? Who can understand that mixture of laughter and life, of love and war, of tenderness and brutality? Who can understand a man who sings mournfully  outside his tent, and tends to his beloved's body, and yet at the same time is a machine made for killing?

Watch this man: watch his fierceness, his passion, his energy. Watch how he carves out a space for himself in the middle of the battle: how he seems to be untouchable, but only because he's moving so fast and anticipating everything that might happen. Watch him, and watch his pride, and most of all, watch his anger. 

The anger of Achilles is the cause of the fall of Troy: the final link in the chain.

The Fall of Troy: Part 6

The Anger of Achilles by Jacques Louis David

THE FALL OF TROY

by Philip Womack

Part 6: Iphigenia at Aulis

If any link in the whole great chain of the Trojan War could have been broken, it should have been this one. This, in truth, was the weakest one, and there were many moments when it might have gone the other way.

The Greek fleet should have stayed on the beach. The men should have been left to grow bloodthirsty and restless.  And then what might have happened? Agamemnon would have been killed at night in his tent by a rebel soldier. His brother, Menelaus, would have had to step in to take control. Being weaker, he would have been unable to control the unruly mass of Greek princelings, and they would have formed factions. 

Menelaus indeed would have been challenged, and then would have met his death, in a duel with Ajax or Achilles, a spear through his flank. Released from their oaths, the chiefs would have fought for the high kingship, or would have dispersed back to their plains and mountains.

And Helen would have grown old in Troy, and would not remember Sparta. She would have, like her mother in law, many children, who would grow up speaking the Trojan tongue, which she would master. Her weaving would become like that of her sisters in law, only, because of its slight strangeness, would be more highly valued. She would weave of her own gods at first; and then what she saw around her; and then her children breaking horses.

Thirty years later, a boat would land, and, wading into the surf, would come a proud man, black curls wet with salt water, seeking alliance and marriage: Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, who had fought for his kingdom from Aegisthus. Helen would hear the Greek sounds in his mouth, and would remember the rude halls and the beard of her husband, and would stutter a greeting to him, forgetting the words for "drink" and "rest". 

The Trojans would be more powerful than ever, and perhaps it would be their ships that sailed to Greece, and their poem that lasted for ever.

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But that is not what happened. Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter, was playing ball with her attendants when the news came. Achilles was to marry her. Achilles, most handsome, most brave, of all the Greek fighters.

Her mother, Clytemnestra, who had become perhaps a little too friendly with her cousin Aegisthus, did not sense  that anything was wrong. If anything, she was pleased - with Iphigenia out of the way, she would more easily install Aegisthus in Agamemnon’s place. She would not go, of course; she would stay in Mycenae, and see to the affairs that she had already started to view as her own.

When Iphigenia arrived at Aulis, she saw the marriage tent set out, its cloths hanging heavy. She was given a drink of water by a ragged woman - the only woman she would see.

Inside the tent would be Achilles, nervously polishing his sword hilt. She wondered where the rest of the women were, why nobody was throwing flowers or nuts, why there was no singing. She wondered where her father was. The ragged woman lifted the tent flap, and shoved her in. Inside was airless and dark, and Iphigenia moistened her lips.

Some say that the Greeks almost went through with the mock ceremony. Some say that the king's daughter was led to Achilles at the altar, and that he took her hand, and that she saw in his eyes what was about to happen; and she was butchered where she stood, with Agamemnon looking on in horror. But that is not what happened.

It was done quietly, foully. She did not know what happened to her. She entered the tent, and stood alone in the dark, and a man, who did not know her, and who had been found from the barbarian north, and who would go back home and drink himself to death, knocked her on the head with a club. 

And that was enough. Her bridal wreath came loose, and lay in the dust by her long golden hair.

Agamemnon could not look at her body. The priests placed her on a pyre. It burned long, and when the smoke died away at dawn, Agamemnon felt something brush his cheek. 

Across the sea, the billows grew higher, and the white sails of the Greek fleet swelled outwards. 

NEXT WEEK: Troy.

Madeline Miller wins the Orange Prize

Patroclus: Achilles' friend

Madeline Miller has won the Orange Prize for her novel The Song of Achilles, told from the point of view of Patroclus (pictured, in the movie Troy.) I've written a short piece about it for The Telegraph. Read it here.

Read my review of Madeline Miller's book here

The Iliad by Homer, trans. Stephen Mitchell: review

Orlando Bloom as Paris, in Troy

I've reviewed a new translation of The Iliad by Homer - it's by Stephen Mitchell, for The Sunday Telegraph, available online here. It's a barnstormer. You can read about the originals of the film Troy - and see what really happened, with Paris in his leopard skin, and Achilles playing the lyre.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: review

Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy

There have been plenty of books about the heroes of The Iliad; films, too, as we watched Brad Pitt buffing up for his role as the best fighter of the Greeks in Troy. Two recent books have made excellent stabs at retellings of various myths to do with the war: my favourite was Barry Unsworth's The Songs of the Kings, which, if I had time, I would definitely be re-reading. David Malouf's Ransom was also eerie and brilliant. Madeline Miller's thrown her helmet into the ring with The Song of Achilles, her debut novel.

Miller tells the tale from the point of view of Patroclus, whom she very much views as Achilles' lover (rather than as a beloved heroic companion. The debate is on.) I've reviewed it for The Sunday Telegraph - check out what I thought about it here.

I'm currently reading a new translation of The Iliad to review it for the same paper, so hold on to your horse-hair helmets for that one...

Me Tarzan! You...

I recently read Tarzan of the Apes for the first time in my life. Here is a link to my review: CLICK HERE

It is, really, a reimagining of the story of Romulus. References to the story abound. There are plenty of moments of comedy, and of great excitement and action. Tarzan rules over a lost, primeval world of Iliadic values - the scene where he dispenses justice amongst the apes reminded me of nothing less than Agamemnon and Achilles. He is a hero - a demigod - a version of Achilles, of Hercules, even of Aeneas (he has a natural piety). The film poster for Greystoke even depicts him as a Christ like figure, which is pushing it....

Did Achilles have Asperger's? And what's Marilyn Monroe got to do with it?

There is a simile in the Aeneid, in Book I, where the busy Carthaginians are seen by our hero (conveniently clad in a cloud spun by his mother Venus) building their new city. They rush here and there, laying out walls, marking out houses, all intent upon their business. Virgil compares them to bees, something I have always found slightly sinister - bees are, after all, relatively mindless. But that is how I have felt, over the last week or so: rather like a bee, perhaps not filling its cell with honey, but at least attempting to do so.

As I have buzzed through the city, I have had the discordant pleasure of my iPod throwing up first Ted Hughes' Prometheus, followed by 'Eurodisco', a song by the little known and much reviled band Bis. From the sublime to the ridiculous, and then to the fall and beyond: I saw Arthur Miller's play, 'After the Fall', a thinly disguised account of his life with Marilyn Monroe, a brittle, heroic, doomed character. In it Pandora McCormick particularly shone as Marilyn, or rather the Marilyn character, clothed in red and pouting on a bed. It is a hard play to pull off, but I think the Oxford Drama School did it well, with strong performances from all.

I've also been reading (after a marvellous review in the New Yorker by Daniel Mendelsohn, I was sent straight back to the source material) the Iliad, and a couple of things struck me: first, what was the actual shape of the Trojan horse? It can't have been anything more than a barrel, really, or perhaps an upturned skiff on a couple of logs. I would like to know more about this: if anyone can point me in the right direction, please do. And the second thing was, perhaps Achilles (another brittle, heroic, doomed character: the Marilyn of his day?) was suffering from some variant of Asperger's syndrome: selfish, ritualistic, and unable to see the views of anyone apart from himself. I wonder if this explains the wrath (menin) of Achilles: Sing, Muse, of the Autistic Spectrum Disorder of Achilles.

Which brings me, in a round-about way, to a film I saw recently advertised: 'Agora'! Now there's a name for a film. 'Meeting-place!' It is, apparently, about the mathematician Hypatia, who as far as I remember was ripped apart by an angry mob using seashells, for one reason or another, I think for attempting to explain calculus or some such. It stars Rachel Weisz. I know nothing more of this film. What next? 'Pythagoras!' We can but live in hope.