Achilleus

ACHILLEUS

Intro: [Who is he?.... is a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's The Iliad. Achilles was the son of the nymph Thetis and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons.]

Considered as the hero of the epic. [He possesses the characteristics of an epic hero, namely kleos,time`,menis, menos, and tisis. - When Agamemnon takes away his girl, Brisies, as a replacement for Crisises, burning with rage Achilles prays to Thetis, his Goddess mother, to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honour. Thus, we can see that time` i.e. honour is very important for Achilles, like any other epic hero. -The most urgent need to perpetuate one’s status in the form of continuing fame after death i.e. kleos is also seen in Achilles. He says to Patroklos: ‘…do not press on without me to fight the war-loving Trojans-that will reduce my worth…’, meaning that he himself wanted to have the glory for sacking Ilium. - Achilles also possesses menos i.e. the force of onrushing energy that is manifested in swift physical and mental movement. Like any other epic hero, Achilles wield weapons too large and heavy; he alone had the skill to handle the huge, heavy and massive spear of Pelian ash which Cheiron, his teacher, had given to his father Peleus.

Anger of Achilles. Homer, instead of focusing on the whole Trojan war decides to focus on a single theme i.e. the menis or the anger of Achilles, announced in the very first line of the epic, The Iliad, which brings endless sufferings to his own side, and ultimately himself. His fight with Agamemnon over Brisies, the girl who Achilles considered as his honour; an honour chosen and given to him by the Greeks themselves and refusal to fight in the war consequently cause suffering to the Greek army. Indirectly, he brings grief to his people, and thus rightly the name Achilles. The name Achilles is made up from two words that are ‘achos=grief’ and ‘laos=people, tribe or nation. In other words, Achilles is an embodiment of the grief of the people. However, if the consequences of his anger for the Greeks were bad, they were catastrophic for him. All the major events of The Ilaid-near defeat of the Achian army, the entry of Achilles’s friends Patroklos into the fighting, the death of Patroklos and last but not the least the death of Hektor- spring in unbroken sequence from the anger that entered Achilles as a result of his ‘disastrous quarrel’ with Agamemnon. As Peter Jones states, ‘his decision not to rejoin the fighting is the beginning of the end of him’. Throughout the book, we see the wrought of his anger—first it is towards Agamemnon and after the death of Patroclos, it gets redirected towards Hector. His anger ends only in the Book 24, after he meets Priam and returns Hector’s body.

Tragic turn in the battle..turning point: love for Patroklos[ Achilles most trusted companion in the land of Troy was Patroklos, son of Menoitios, who was brought up by Peleus after a youthful manslaughter. Achilles trusted Patroklos as when instigated by him, he gives Patroklos the responsibility to save the ships from the crisis. Achilles judges his friend aptly, as he is a brave warrior, having all the heroic qualities and is instrumental in pushing back the Trojan army from Greek ships. As we read the text, we come to know that Achilles loved him very much as he constantly prays to Zeus, the father of Gods, for the safe return of his companion. After he comes to know about Paroklos’s death, he is drowned in the sea of grief and as Homes says that ‘a black cloud of sorrow envelopes him’. He tells Thetis, his mother that ‘a man I honoured above all my companions, as much as my own life, is dead’. He says that even his own father’s death wouldn’t have caused this much grief to him as Patroklos’s death has; ‘…no second grief like this one will come and touch my heart as long as I am in the company of the living’. It is the death of Patroklos that brings him in the battle field, bringing forth the idea of revenge or vengeance i.e. tisis. He becomes maddened, almost bestial, in his desire for killing Hector. When Hektor is dying, he says that the fury in his heart would drive him to cut Hektor in pieces and eat his flesh raw. So much is the love for Paroklos that even after dragging the corpse of Hector around Patroclos’s dead body for several days, he fails to resolve his anguish.

In Book 18, Achilles answers the question: ‘What is a man’s life worth?’ He says that a man’s life is worth revenge on the person who killed his beloved companion. The decision of killing Hector is a horrifying one as Achilles, by doing so, is nearing his own death. However, this decision is also a heroic one as Achilles chooses to die not primarily to win the everlasting glory, but because he holds himself responsible for Patroclos’s death. Acc. to Peter Jones, Homer describes Achilles as an initially wronged hero, of divine ancestry, who finds his world inexplicably turning to ashes as a result of the decisions he has freely, if not intemperately, taken, whose greatness lies in his refusal to disclaim the responsibility of his actions, even though his own death will be the inevitable consequence.

how he is different . Achilles' role as the hero of grief forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of Achilles as the hero of kleos (glory).There is a constant mention of his sulking by the ships over Brisies.At some extent we can call him selfish for not fighting in the war, just because his prize was taken away by Agamemnon, which isn’t a heroic quality. Also, in Book 16, he tells Patroklos that he was thinking of putting aside his anger only when the clamour of battle would reach his own ships, no sooner. Hector, in spite of being unhappy at Paris and his act, joins the battle with a determination to save the sacred city of Ilium. Even Patroklos, in Book 16, wishes that he may never be taken by an anger like Achilles’s and that he is a cruel man whose pride is ruinous. However, after Patroklos’s death, his main aim is not to gain kleos or time` in the battle, but is to avenge the death of his friend by killing Hector. Also, he is different from a black and white character like Hector; he is rather a complex one. Other characters don’t change throughout the epic. A character like Hektor is never seen without the heroic quality of bravely fighting in the battle and facing his opponent. In Book 22, when Priam sees Achilles speeding near the walls of Troy, he implores his son hector to come safely inside the city, Hektor refuses the offer and decides to fight with Achilles. This scene is a stark contrast to the scene when Achilles meets Priam in Book 24. We see a change of heart in him in this book due to Priam’s appeals to Achilles. He realizes that the tragedies of Priam and himself are intertwined. He says: ‘There are two jars standing on Zeus’s floor, which hold the gifts he gives us: one holds evil, the other blessings’, i.e. life is at best a mixture of good and ill, as it has been for both Priam and Achilles’s father Peleus. By Achilles’s efforts, Priam, a father, has lost his son Hector and by these same efforts Achilles has lost Patroklos, and his father Peleus will shortly have lost his son too.—Thus, he may be rightly called as the hero of The Ilaid.