Summary
Agamemnon’s men come for Briseis, and Achilles makes a show of being tolerant. Patroclus is overcome with fury—he wants to destroy everything and kill himself just to see Achilles’ face broken with grief and regret. He decides to give Agamemnon what he wants more than Briseis: leverage over Achilles. He goes to Agamemnon’s tent and explains, with a blood oath of truth, what Achilles has done—if Agamemnon violates Briseis, he violates Achilles’ honor, and all of the Greeks will turn against him.
When he learns of Patroclus’s betrayal, Achilles asks if Patroclus is happy with his trade: Briseis’s safety for Achilles’ honor. Patroclus accuses him of hubris, pride, and says he would not have Achilles’ reputation be something that he isn’t. They’ll get revenge on Agamemnon another way. Achilles says that Patroclus is a better man than him—especially considering what else he has done today.
At Achilles’ request, Thetis has gotten Zeus, the great balancer, to stop balancing—the Greeks will lose and lose until they have to beg Achilles for help. Patroclus is upset that innocent men will die. He goes to see Briseis, whom Agamemnon has covered in jewels in a show of keeping her safe. The next day, the Greeks go to war without the Myrmidons, and Patroclus and Achilles wait to see what the gods will do.
That night, Phoinix tells Patroclus and Achilles that Paris disappeared magically during one-on-one combat with Menelaus, who is now wounded. Hector offered to fight a second duel to make up for Paris’s disappearance, and he and Ajax dueled until nightfall. Achilles is thrilled that his absence is so important; Patroclus is not.
The Trojans get reinforcements. Greeks die, and they begin to blame Achilles. Finally, Phoinix, Ajax, and Odysseus come to Achilles. He will be given gifts and Briseis, but Agamemnon will not beg, so Achilles will not fight. Phoinix tells the story of Meleager, whose pride stopped him from saving his people until his wife begged him to fight; Patroclus sees this as Phoinix asking him for help. Achilles falls asleep, so Patroclus sneaks into Agamemnon’s camp to speak to Briseis, who calls him the best of the Myrmidons. Patroclus wishes he could somehow untie Achilles, with his guileless nature, from the weavings of Agamemnon and Odysseus.
The next morning, the Trojan army attacks the Greeks’ gate. The medical tent is full of the wounded—Diomedes, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and even Machaon the healer. An injured prince, Eurypylus, tells Patroclus he does not know who he hates more, the Trojans or Achilles. Ajax tries to fight him off, but Hector sets fire to the Greek ships. Ajax is wounded and falls.
Patroclus sprints back to Achilles, weeping and begging him to fight, but Achilles is untouched; Patroclus’s words do not reach him. Patroclus even asks Achilles to fight to save him personally, but still Achilles says no—so Patroclus, feeling as though someone else is speaking through him, offers to put on Achilles’ armor and go in his place. Achilles says yes, as long as Patroclus swears not to fight.
Achilles dresses Patroclus in his own armor. They kiss and do not say goodbye—there will be other times for speaking. The Greeks begin to rally as soon as they see Achilles’ chariot approaching. The world feels poised and waiting—Patroclus breaks his promise not to fight and throws a spear, saving a ship from burning. The Greeks begin to fight well, but Sarpedon takes down Patroclus’s chariot. Patroclus kills him by knocking him out of his chariot, breaking his neck, but stabs him as well so people will think it was Achilles’ blow that killed Sarpedon, not just a broken neck.
Automedon drives Patroclus’s chariot close to the walls of Troy, which are completely unguarded. Guided by a powerful urge, Patroclus begins to climb the wall, at the top of which he sees Apollo. Apollo smiles and throws him from the wall. Patroclus is down at the bottom again, and he begins climbing, delirious; he forgets Apollo, feverish to get to Helen, and when Apollo throws him off the wall the second time, he isn’t smiling.
The fall breaks all of Achilles’ armor from Patroclus, revealing his identity to the Trojans. He runs but is overtaken, and Hector kills him with a spear. His last thought is Achilles.
Analysis
The prideful clash between Agamemnon and Achilles results in the death of many men, and the survivors begin to blame Achilles. If only he would be just slightly less prideful, accepting Agamemnon’s offer to return Briseis and give him many gifts besides, Achilles could save the Greeks from death. But, Achilles argues, if he gives Agamemnon this, Agamemnon will walk all over him for the rest of his life. Patroclus is the one who bears the brunt of the men’s anger, trying to heal their injuries in the medical tents. Patroclus has become the caretaker of Achilles’ humanity, in a way: as Achilles becomes more godlike in his hubris, Patroclus works to save the injured Greeks and protect Achilles’ legacy.
Patroclus worries that Achilles’ fame will not be for his greatness, but for his cruelty. When he reveals Achilles’ plan to Agamemnon, he does it to protect Briseis and Achilles—not the Achilles of today, but the Achilles that will be painted on urns and sung about for generations. Thetis and Patroclus work in parallel ways to guide Achilles’ legacy. Thetis aims for immortality, and Patroclus aims to preserve Achilles’ mortality. Their mutual distaste for each other perhaps reflects the inner conflict Achilles experiences between his god-born and mortal natures; when he says that Patroclus is a better man than he, Achilles is telling the truth. He is sometimes able to forget he is a man at all.
Patroclus dies in these chapters, and his life is bookended by the murders he committed, of Clysonymus and of Sarpedon. He commits both essentially by accident—by knocking the men down. The nature-based visual imagery used to describe killing Sarpedon (pollen and bulbs) draws from Patroclus’s own interest in the loveliness of the world, even as he kills a son of Zeus. The similarity between these killings creates a sense of balance in the novel, strengthening the notion that these events are foretold, unfolding in a perfect pattern as though designed by nature.
When Patroclus asks to go to battle dressed as Achilles, the request surprises him as much as it surprises Achilles. He feels as though someone speaks through him, specifically saying it feels as though the words came from a god. His actions on the battlefield are the same; despite swearing he won’t fight, he feels driven to use his spears, and he performs much better than he would have otherwise. Patroclus has had only one day of formal fighting lessons in his life, but in Achilles’ armor, he behaves as well as Achilles might—he isn’t Aristos Achaion, but he is, tragically, the best of the Myrmidons (which is a bit ironic: the best of the Myrmidons is an exiled outcast).
Whether his battlefield performance is his own work or divinely inspired, Patroclus’s compulsion to scale the walls of Troy is clearly god-brought. His fevered climbing is ridiculous, especially when Apollo knocks him down and he starts again. Which side of the gods—those like Athena and Hera, supporting the Greeks, or those like Apollo and Aphrodite, who favor the Trojans—possesses him to climb the wall is unclear. How much of his behavior is his own? Should Achilles’ rage be directed at the gods, for killing his love, instead of at Hector? It seems that even Patroclus doesn’t know how much blame the gods have in his death.
