The Main Character Has Arrived
The Five-Minute Iliad, #19 & 20
This is another ongoing series as I do a slow-read of THE ILIAD by Homer, translated by Rouse. Previous installments: book 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 & 10 | 11 & 12 | 13 & 14 | 15 & 16 | 17 & 18 |
Book 19
Thetis returns from Olympus to deliver this brand-new, fresh-from-the-forge suit of epic armor to Achilles, just straight-up radiating aura in the drip, or whatever kids say now. Skibidi rizz Ohio. This stuff goes so hard that the Myrmidons actually back up when they see it, but Achilles is hella ready to equip the loot. BUT, there is work to do first.
Achilles quickly asks Thetis to make sure that Patroclus’ body doesn’t rot and fall victim to worms. She agrees to take care of his corpse while Achilles heads over to Agamemnon to bury the hatchet re: Briseis. He’s pretty curt and cold about her, even going so far as to wish she’d died in the battle where she was captured, so that the feud could never have happened, and all the men who died while Achilles boycotted the war might still be alive. A cold thing to say, but practical, and issued more out of love for his fellow soldiers than out of animus for the girl.
Agamemnon is more than a little relieved to hear this, and eagerly places the blame for the whole debacle on the gods. His speech goes on for a while. Odysseus then throws in his two cents and tells the whole army to carb-load before battle because this is going to be hard work. Everybody does, but Achilles abstains, as he’s still in mourning for Patroclus, and his rage will sustain him. For what it’s worth, Agamemnon returns Briseis to Achilles, and even makes it official by offering up an animal sacrifice to confirm that he did not have sexual relations with that woman.
He puts on the armor. He looks sooooo good in it, and his stats are sky-high. Amends are made, morale is boosted, Achilles even has a brief conversation with his horse (the horse talks for a minute) reminding him that he is going to die, and now everyone is revved up for war.
Book 20
Zeus takes one look at Achilles riding into battle and immediately hits the Olympic panic button, summoning all the gods and their courts back to the mountain. “We’ve got a crack situation here, team,” he says in ancient Greek. “Achilles is coming to solo Troy. Not Hector; all of Troy. And he can probably do it. If we do nothing, he’ll hit their army and have them wetting the bed like overhydrated two-year-olds. SO. Here’s what I’m doing: you know that moratorium on you guys getting involved? Scrapped. Fight as openly as you like on behalf of the side of your choosing. Y’all have struggled with the likes of Hector, Ajax, Diomedes, and a few other mortals—Achilles could body them all, AND most of us. This all just got real.”
The gods, simultaneously excited and trepidatious, take their place down on the battlefield with their preferred armies.
GREEK CORNER:
Hera, divine tradwife
Athena, goddess of battles and wisdom (Hermione Granger with a gun)
Poseidon, god of the sea and of horses and of seahorses, and for some reason, earthquakes
Hermes, messenger of the gods, who apparently gives people luck now?
and Hephaestus, god of the forge, of hammers, of prosthetics, and of limps.
TROJAN CORNER:
Ares, god of war, who already got his guts stuffed backward by Diomedes, so…overrated
Apollo, god of the sun and also shooting people with arrows from a distance, no balls
Artemis, goddess of the hunt, so also good at archery, no balls (different reason)
Leto, mother of Apollo, we’re really getting the whole family involved
Xanthos, just a local guy, likes the rivers, wants to help out the home team
and Aphrodite, goddess of love, that slut, she started all of this if you really think about it.
The fight is on. The armies crash together like a combination of the scene at the end of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, and the big fight in Avengers: Endgame where the writers dumped out the toy box and just smashed it all into a huge pile. Achilles really wants to fight Hector, but Troy, being a bunch of dorks about it, sends Aeneas to fight him instead.
Remember how Diomedes almost crushed Aeneas to death with a rock, ending Rome a few centuries before it ever got started? Yeah well Achilles freaking mogs Diomedes’ stats. The special effects budget on this thing is enough to permanently reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He runs into Aeneas in the heat of the battle, and they do that ancient thing where they stop to whip out their family trees on each other. Apollo reminds Aeneas that he is the son of Aphrodite, while Achilles is only the son of a nymph in Poseidon’s court.
Aeneas, totally hopped up on his own BS, dukes it out with Achilles, who would have slapped Aeneas ten ways to Sunday, except that Poseidon, of all figures—who is on Achilles’ side—intervenes on Aeneas’ behalf, because he’s a good boy who says his prayers and eats his vegetables.
Apollo kept LITERALLY getting involved in the battle and he steered away all of Achilles’ arrows and such. Achilles knew it was Apollo, and that he couldn’t take on Hector just yet, even though Hector really had it coming to him, so he’d put a pin in that for now and instead go on an incredible rampage throughout other ranks of the Trojan army.
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