Achilles in the Iliad Essay

Scenes Of joss and sorrow were regular focuses for the painters of these vases so this moment of Achilles’ grieving is thematically fitting.What stands out to me is that the artist chose to paint Achilles in a passive moment rather than a fighting one even though the other segments of the flask are action-based. This work is yet another piece of evidence supporting the idea that ancient and modern audiences responded to the affectionate relationship of Achilles and Patrols more passionately, perhaps, than the violence that characterizes the myth. Examining the particular passage of The Iliad wherein Achilles mourns and species Hepatitis’ newly wrought armor in its own is interesting in its own.After Thesis begs her son “do not yet go into the grind of the war god” she returns, new armor in hand, to find “her beloved son lying in the arms of Patrols crying shrill. ” (Homer 18. 134, 19.

4-5). Homer’s choice of diction is here striking; the image of the powerful Achilles lying with his dead partner weeping is particularly affecting. I firmly believe that this episode is responsible for much of the attention that has been and is paid to the bond of the hero and his friend. Additionally, this moment functions as the turning mint, as discussed before, where Achilles decides to take up arms against the Trojan and certainly Hector.When he was presented with these new godly gifts, a change took place within Achilles as Homer describes it: “A clash went from the grinding of his teeth” and “the anger came harder upon him and his eyes glittered terribly under his lids, like sunflower. ” (Homer 19.

P. Cavy. In a literal sense, the poem discusses the sorrow felt by the immortal horses Santos and Balboa and the regret of Zeus upon the death of Patrols. The story behind the horses themselves is that they were a gift from Zeus to Pulses at his wedding to Thesis.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the horses are to metaphorically represent Achilles himself. For example in the poem Zeus ambiguously states, “l shouldn’t have acted so thoughtlessly at the wedding of Pulses” then entities, “Men have caught you up in their misery. ” (Cavy 13-14, 20).Additionally, in response to Patrols’ death “they [the horses] reared their heads, tossed their manes, beat the ground with their hooves, and mourned”, a volatile reaction comparable to that of Achilles in The Iliad. Also in the epic, Hear momentarily granted Santos the ability to speak and subsequently he prophesied Achilles’ death, reflecting the sad entanglement in mortal affairs brought up by Cavy in his work. The immortal horse declared, “we two [horses] could run with the blast of the west wind who they say is the lightest Of all things; yet still for you there is destiny to be killed in force by a god and a mortal” (Homer 19.

The work is titled “The Triumph of Achilles”, an interesting choice of words seeing as not all would agree that the myth’s ending is triumphant. Given the disparity between title and content, perchance in her poem Gal.;KC is suggesting that for Achilles triumph has nothing to do with battle but rather achieving immortality. The contents afford a reflection on the Trojan War but the tone is one of resignation. In the first two stanzas Clock reduces Achilles to an abandoned dependent, a view that isn’t necessarily unfounded, through her evaluation of his and Patrols’ friendship.Cluck remarks “In his tent, Achilles grieved with his whole being and the gods saw he was a man already dead” in a literal sense referencing the hero’s destiny to die in battle but also suggesting that the loss of Patrols was a fatal blow (Gal.;KC 15-18). Homer deals with this moment similarly testifying “But he, brilliant Achilles, walked along by the seashore crying his terrible cry, and stirred up the fighting Achaeans.

” (Homer 19. 40-1 Both accounts acknowledge the profound effect that Patrols’ passing caused.The last lines describe Achilles to be “a victim of the part that loved, the part that was mortal” (Cluck 19-20). Because the last lines of a poem generally have the most intense effect on the audience it is safe to assume Gal.;KC aimed to emphasize the gentler side of Achilles, exhibiting once more how this aspect of the myth is appealing to artists.