There's Plenty of Crying in Epic
Introducing Book 16
This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 16. Here is a link to the overview of Iliad 15 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
I always dislike when people ask which books of the Iliad are must-reads. Unsurprisingly, I think they all are pretty necessary. But I do have to concede that there are some that can be skipped without losing too much of the sense of the whole, and there are others that are absolutely crucial. Iliad 16 is pretty near indispensable to the plot of the poem (as anticipated in Zeus’ speech in book 15), but it also has critical engagements with the epic’s themes and connections with larger narrative traditions. It just may be one of the top 4 books of the Iliad, depending on your interests.
Book 16 has three major components, but splits more easily into two parts. The first part is the meeting between Patroklos and Achilles and the preparation for the latter to lead the Myrmidons into war in the former’s place; the second part is the aristeia of Patroklos that includes some wholesale slaughter along with the death of Sarpedon, and ends with Patroklos’ own fall. I think the book could also be seen in three movements: the preparation, the rallying of the Greeks and death of Sarpedon, and the excess, ending in Patroklos death at Hektor’s hands. The plot of this book engages critically with the major themes I have noted to follow in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions, but the central themes I emphasize in reading and teaching book 13 are heroism, Family & Friends, Gods and Humans and Narrative Traditions.
Book 16 is also the longest book of the Iliad: given its detail and how important it is not just to this epic but to other narrative traditions, there’s no way to talk about everything. In my posts on book 16, I think I will stick to a simple scheme: the beginning (Patroklos speaks to Achilles), the middle (Patroklos kills Sarpedon) and the end (Hektor kills Patroklos). Book 16 is remarkable for many reasons, but one of them is how it picks up the action from book 11, when Nestor spoke to Patroklos and encouraged him to convince Achilles to return to war or take his place in turn. As I wrote about in discussing book 13, the narrative is still in the epic’s longest day and for all we know Achilles has been watching the action since he sent Patroklos to investigate.
When Patroklos arrives, Achilles addresses him with a simile that has caught some attention over time.
Homer, Iliad 16.2-19
“So they were fighting about the well-benched ship,
Then Patroklos stood next to Achilles, the shepherd of the host,
Pouring out warm tears like some dark-watered spring
That drains its murky water down a steep cliff.
When swift-footed Achilles saw him, he pitied him,
And addressed him, speaking out winged words:
“Why do you weep, Patroklos, like some little girl
Who is racing alongside her mother asking her to carry her
As she pulls on her clothing and holds her back as she hurries—
She looks at her with tears until she picks her up.
You look like her, Patroklos, as you shed your tears.
Is there something you need to tell the Myrmidons or me?
Have you alone heard some message from Phthia?
People say Menoitios, Actor’s son, lives still and
Peleus, the son of Aeacus, lives among the Myrmidons.
We would truly grieve together if these two were dead.
Or are you upset over the Argives, that they are perishing
Among the ships, because of their own arrogance?
Tell me, don’t keep it secret, so we can both know.”Πάτροκλος δ’ ᾿Αχιλῆϊ παρίστατο ποιμένι λαῶν
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος,
ἥ τε κατ’ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ.
τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ᾤκτιρε ποδάρκης δῖος ᾿Αχιλλεύς,
καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
τίπτε δεδάκρυσαι Πατρόκλεες, ἠΰτε κούρη
νηπίη, ἥ θ’ ἅμα μητρὶ θέουσ’ ἀνελέσθαι ἀνώγει
εἱανοῦ ἁπτομένη, καί τ’ ἐσσυμένην κατερύκει,
δακρυόεσσα δέ μιν ποτιδέρκεται, ὄφρ’ ἀνέληται·
τῇ ἴκελος Πάτροκλε τέρεν κατὰ δάκρυον εἴβεις.
ἠέ τι Μυρμιδόνεσσι πιφαύσκεαι, ἢ ἐμοὶ αὐτῷ,
ἦέ τιν’ ἀγγελίην Φθίης ἐξέκλυες οἶος;
ζώειν μὰν ἔτι φασὶ Μενοίτιον ῎Ακτορος υἱόν,
ζώει δ’ Αἰακίδης Πηλεὺς μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι;
τῶν κε μάλ’ ἀμφοτέρων ἀκαχοίμεθα τεθνηώτων.
ἦε σύ γ’ ᾿Αργείων ὀλοφύρεαι, ὡς ὀλέκονται
νηυσὶν ἔπι γλαφυρῇσιν ὑπερβασίης ἕνεκα σφῆς;ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω.
This sequence provides multiple perspectives on Patroklos’ crying. As Rachel Lesser suggests, the repetition of similes for crying from book 9 to 16 emphasizes Patroklos’ empathy for the suffering of the Achaeans and puts him in the place of translator between them and Achilles (2022, 174). But this is not the only comparison: Achilles himself enters the discussion and compares Patroklos to a little girl, chasing after her mother until she picks her up. From the perspective of modern misogyny, this simile seems dismissive if not insulting. The context of the relationship and the conversation changes this a little, I think. First, this is a private conversation between just two people; second, the pair are intimates and Achilles is offering a take on their relationship that echoes his own statement in book 9 where he compares himself to a mother bird.
There have been multiple interpretations of this simile. Kathy L. Gaca argued in a 2008 article that this evokes the experience of a mother and daughter pair in war, fleeing capture and abuse at the hands of enemy warriors. Others, like David Porter, have been cautious about how much the image should be particularized to such a moment: suggesting that the simile may also look ahead and back to other conflicts and parts of this poem. Like Gaca, I can’t help but hear the echoes of a city under siege and Agamemnon’s earlier threats; yet, I think we can’t be sure what audiences would have thought about.
Here, too, we can think of the tension in the relationship imagined. Achilles frames Patroklos as someone who desperately needs him just as he also implicitly acknowledges that he needs Patroklos too. There’s something thematically crucial in the mother’s headlong rush, in her interest to get something done, regardless of the child’s needs at that moment. This is something Celsiana Warwick highligjhts well in her discussion where she argues that “ the Iliad uses maternal imagery in martial contexts to highlight the conflict between the Homeric hero’s obligation to protect his comrades and his imperative to win timē and kleos, “honor and glory.” Maternity in Homeric poetry is strongly associated with protection, and maternal imagery is primarily applied to warriors engaging in the defense of their comrades” (2019, 1). This reading resists modern gender distinctions and instead looks at a pattern in epic that is charged at this particular moment where Achilles’ own concern for his honor results in the failure of his role as a protector. As Warwick writes, “The image of the mother ignoring the needs of her child represents the way in which Achilles at this point in the poem is ignoring the needs of the Achaeans, whom he described as his children at 9.323–7” (9).
As Rachel Lesser summarizes (174-176), this simile also demonstrates that Achilles is actually concerned by Patroklos. As anyone who has lived with a toddler knows, you can put off the tugging and the crying, but ultimately a child needs care. A good parent, while focused elsewhere, learns to balance self and other and responds as they can. The problem is that sometimes there’s no balance of response that will serve all needs. Achilles answers Patroklos’ call and sends him to war with the Myrmidons, but not without a warning not to overstep and take the honor that is truly owed to Achilles.
Addendum: ‘Patrochilles’
One thing to address here is the status of the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos. My standard answer in teaching the Iliad is to acknowledge that some early audiences received their relationship as romantic/sexual, clear from references in fragments of Aeschylus and later authors like Plato and Aeschines. The epic, however, is not explicit about the status of their relationship and this can be understood in two ways. First, the genre of heroic epic is generally reticent about sexual activity apart from the fact of its occurrence. When sexuality is detailed, it is usually a problem. Second, I suspect that Homeric epic was in part responding to differing sexual customs among their audiences. While pederastic relationships (that is, between an older male and an adolescent) seem to be acceptable in certain contexts in ancient Greece, there were variable sexual customs in different places and times and Homeric poetry endeavors to represent a composite picture of a heroic past that most Greek city-states could see themselves in.
So, I think the core message is, yes, the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos was meant to be profound and significant, but how to ‘code’ it was left to audience interpretation as a feature of Homeric caginess. In recent years, there has been both a scholarly reappraisal of their relationship and a greater interest in modern audiences to frame their relationship as sexual. Recent discussions framing their relationship as on the spectrum from “homosocial” to “homosexual” brings nuance to the discussions and important background material to considering their relationship (see especially the work of Celsiana Warwick and Rachel Lesser). Scholarly frameworks, however, say little about the reception of Patroklos and Achilles as a couple (e.g. ‘Patrochilles’) by modern audiences. Such a reception, which seems largely positive and affirming, is to me a testament of the protean power of Homeric poetry. The echoes of a conjugal relationship between the pair are undeniable, as Celsiana Warwick demonstrates in her article. But the subtlety and the nuance of the relationship is such that it is affective for audiences invested in a broad spectrum of sexual mores.
A short Bibliography on Patroklos and Achilles in book 16
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.
Allan, William. “Arms and the man: Euphorbus, Hector, and the death of Patroclus.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 55, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1-16. Doi: 10.1093/cq/bmi00
Anderson, Warren D. “Achilles and the Dark Night of the Soul.” The Classical Journal 51, no. 6 (1956): 265–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292885.
Burgess, Jonathan. “Beyond Neo-Analysis: Problems with the Vengeance Theory.” The American Journal of Philology 118, no. 1 (1997): 1–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1562096.
Clark, Mark Edward, and William D. E. Coulson. “Memnon and Sarpedon.” Museum Helveticum 35, no. 2 (1978): 65–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24815318.
Fantuzzi, M. 2012. Achilles in Love. Oxford.
Gaca, Kathy L. “Reinterpreting the Homeric Simile of ‘Iliad’ 16.7-11: The Girl and Her Mother in Ancient Greek Warfare.” The American Journal of Philology 129, no. 2 (2008): 145–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27566700.
Karakantza, Efimia D.. “Who is liable for blame ? : Patroclus’ death in book 16 of the « Iliad ».” Έγκλημα και τιμωρία στην ομηρική και αρχαϊκή ποίηση : από τα πρακτικά του ΙΒ' διεθνούς συνεδρίου για την Οδύσσεια, Ιθάκη, 3-7 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013. Eds. Christopoulos, Menelaos and Païzi-Apostolopoulou, Machi. Ithaki: Kentro Odysseiakon Spoudon, 2014. 117-136.
Kesteren, Morgan van. “ERASTES-EROMENOS RELATIONSHIPS IN TWO ANCIENT EPICS.” CrossCurrents 69, no. 4 (2019): 351–64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26851797.
Ledbetter, Grace M. “Achilles’ Self-Address: Iliad 16.7-19.” The American Journal of Philology 114, no. 4 (1993): 481–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/295421.
Lesser, Rachel. 2022. Desire in the Iliad. Oxford.
Paton, W. R. “The Armour of Achilles.” The Classical Review 26, no. 1 (1912): 1–4. http://www.jstor.org/stable/694771.
Porter, D. (2010). The Simile at Iliad 16.7–11 Once Again: Multiple Meanings. Classical World 103(4), 447-454. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2010.0016.
Ready, Jonathan. 2011. Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad. Cambridge.
Scott, John A. “Paris and Hector in Tradition and in Homer.” Classical Philology 8, no. 2 (1913): 160–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/262449.
Scodel, Ruth. “The Word of Achilles.” Classical Philology 84, no. 2 (1989): 91–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/270264.
Sears, M. (2010). Warrior Ants: Elite Troops in the Iliad. Classical World 103(2), 139-155. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.0.0182.
Warwick, C. (2019). The Maternal Warrior: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad. American Journal of Philology 140(1), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0001.
Warwick, C. (2019). We Two Alone: Conjugal Bonds and Homoerotic Subtext in the Iliad. Helios 46(2), 115-139. https://doi.org/10.1353/hel.2019.0007.