Book 18: Thetis, Achilles and New Armour
Achilles in mourning
Antilochus makes it to Achilles as the fighting continues to rage on. He finds Achilles sitting in his camp, talking to himself about how he thinks Patroclus must have died if the Trojans are getting so close to the ships. Achilles deduces that Patroclus must have gone to attack Hector despite him specifically telling Patroclus not to. Antilochus approaches, weeping, and tells Achilles that Patroclus is dead and that he’s sorry he had to hear it from him. He informs the son of Peleus that Hector has taken the armour Patroclus was wearing (which, if we remember, was Achilles’ armour) and now everyone is fighting over the body.
It’s now we get the famous mourning of Achilles: Homer describes a black cloud of sorrow settling over Achilles as Antiochus delivers the news. He drops to his knees and in both hands he grabs at the Earth beneath him, pouring it over his head so it falls onto his face. He tears at his hair with his hands as he laments. The women in the camp join Achilles in his lament, beating their breasts with their hands and wailing towards the heavens.
Antilochus, still crying, holds his hands out to Achilles in fear. Nestor’s son informs us that he’s terrified Achilles will cut his throat for delivering the bad news, which really shows just how impulsive and rageful Achilles can be.
From beneath the sea, Thetis hears her son’s pain and begins to cry. All the daughters of Nereus come to gather around her and beat their breasts in mourning.
Thetis calls out and expresses the sorrow she feels, saying that she gave birth to a perfect son in Achilles but now she knows that she will never receive him home from the shores of Troy. Even though Achilles lives now, she can not do anything to help ease his pain in his final days nor change the trajectory of his story. Thetis leaves the cave to go to the shore, finds Achilles and asks him why he laments (I know — the idea that we just read all of that only for Thetis to have not ACTUALLY been listening is mind-boggling).
Achilles answers her, saying “What pleasure is this to me since my best friend whom I loved more than all my other friends and more than I loved my own life is now gone”. He also says that Hector has taken his armour — which, interestingly, was the armour the gods gave Peleus on his wedding day to Thetis — and therefore he can not even return to battle to defend Patroclus’ body. Achilles expresses that he has no will to live unless Hector is killed, and acknowledges that his mother must feel pain because everyone knows that he will never return home.
Thetis replies saying that Achilles’ death will come soon after Hector’s, and Achilles announces that he’ll let his anger for Agamemnon be a thing of the past. Despite knowing his downfall follows that of Hector’s, he will still go into war to avenge his comrade. He says that he accepts his own death for whatever time Zeus wishes it, considering not even heroes like Herakles could avoid his death and he was Zeus’ favourite. But now, Achilles must win his glory.
His mother tells him how brave he is but instructs him to wait to go back into the fighting. She will first go to Hephaestus to get him new armour, and only after that can Achilles return to war. She instructs her sisters (yes, the daughters of Nereus are close by) to go and tell their father the terrible news as she is too busy to do it herself. With that, the daughters of Nereus return to the sea and Thetis goes off to Mount Olympus to find Hephaestus.
Back on the battlefield …
While Thetis runs off, we cut back to the battlefield. The Greeks are still making their way back to the camps with the body of Patroclus.
Hector gets a grip on Patroclus’ feet three times, and three times the two Ajax’s beat him away. But Hector was confident that he would get the body and the two Ajax’s begin to struggle through his onslaught. Homer says that Hector was so fierce he would have been successful in his mission had not Iris come down from Olympus with a message for Achilles.
Iris, sent by Hera, informs Achilles to defend Patroclus as the Trojans are trying to run off with him. She also tells him that Hector wants to chop off Patroclus’ head and stick it on a stake, and so now is the time for Achilles to make sure that doesn’t happen. Achilles then addresses her and is like “Iris, which god sent you here with that message?” and she goes “Hera, but Zeus doesn’t know”. So Achilles asks her how in the world he should go into fighting without any armour considering Thetis already told him to wait until she returns with the new armour. Iris is like “Just go show yourself as you are to the Trojans, and hopefully they’ll be scared of the sight of you and give way on their attack”.
Iris leaves and Achilles gets up to go be scary. Athena swoops in to help create a formidable image, placing the aegis about his shoulders and putting a golden cloud around his head to make it look like he has this fire blazing above him.
When Achilles reaches the edge of the camp he shouts out to the army. Athena amplifies this great cry to make it seem louder and encourage even more terror within the Trojans — and it works. The Trojans are completely shaken by the sight of Achilles and his booming voice. In fact, we’re told that the charioteers were dumbfounded when they saw the flame above Achilles (Homer describes him as looking like a signal light) and that their horses turned the chariots around to retreat. Three times Achilles gives his great cry, and three times the Trojans recoil in fear. Right then and there, twelve men perished.
As promised, this distraction gave the Greeks enough time to bring Patroclus into camp and Achilles follows in behind them, crying.
Trojan Meeting
In response to Achilles, the Trojan army call a meeting. No man had the patience to sit down so they all have the assembly standing up.
Poulydamas is first to speak. We find out in the opening of his speech that he and Hector were born on the same night, but they have grown into incredibly different people: Poulydamas is better with his words, whereas Hector is better with his spear. Anyways, Poulydamas tells the men not to wait out on the battlefield but to go back into the city where it’s safe. He claims that the Greeks were only easier to fight in recent weeks because Achilles was mad at Agamemnon but now that Achilles is back, the game has changed. He advises everyone to return to Troy because if Achilles catches them in the morning, then there will be many Trojans who will be food for the vultures (aka killed, but this is much more poetic). Poulydamas ends by saying that they should all go sleep in the market place, and then early in the morning (before dawn) they will take their stations along the wall.
Hector replies and says that he does not like what Poulydamas is saying. He says once upon a time, people used to know Troy for its treasurers and now it has none to speak of because of the Greeks. He highlights how Zeus has shown him favour and because of that, he will not allow any of the Trojans to obey the words of Poulydamas. He instructs the men to stay outside and in the morning they will arm themselves for war. If it is true that Achilles is coming out into battle, then Hector will fight him.
The Trojans cheer in response. Of course, Homer calls them fools because we all know that Hector is going to die. The men gave all their applause to Hector and none to Poulydamas, even though Poulydamas was right. The army end the meeting and go to eat their dinner.
Back at the greek camp
As all of that is going on, the Greeks are mourning Patroclus in the camp.
Achilles leads them in lamentation, laying his hands over Patroclus’ chest as he cries. He tells the Myrmidons of how he had promised Patroclus’ dad that he would bring back his son in glory once Troy was sacked. But Zeus hasn’t allowed this, and therefore it’s both his and Patroclus’ destiny to die in Troy. He says that since they’re both destined to die, he will not bury his comrade until he brings back the armour Hector has stolen AND Hector’s head, since he’s the man who killed Patroclus.
Achilles then announces he will kill twelve Trojan youths to show his anger for Patroclus’ death. Until those murders happen, the body of Patroclus will continue to lie in front of Achilles’ ships.
Achilles tells his companions to set this great cauldron on the fire. Once that has heated, they wash the body of Patroclus and anoint it with olive oil. Then they place him on a bed and lay a thin sheet over him from head to toe, then covering that with a white mantle.
All night long the Myrmidons and Achilles lament for Patroclus.
Brief cut to Zeus and Hera
The action now shifts to Zeus and Hera. The king turns to his wife and blames her for the Trojans future loss, to which Hera says “well yeah I HATE THE TROJANS” (not an exact quote*). And that’s … literally the entire scene between them.
Thetis gets the armour
We cut to Thetis who has finally made it to Hephaestus’ home. She finds him sweating in his workshop, working on these twenty tripods which were all lined up along a wall. Homer tells us that he had put wheels on the bottom of each one of the tripod’s legs so that they could be used to roll the gods into immortal gatherings, but was adding the finishing touches to his invention when Thetis arrives.
Thetis knocks on the door and is greeted by Hephaestus’ current wife, Charis. Charis comes over to catch Thetis by the hand and ask her why she’s come to their home — not that they don’t love seeing her, but she’s never come until now. Before Thetis can answer, Charis ushers her inside and leads her to a beautiful chair made with silver nails. She settles Thetis into the comfortable spot and then goes to find Hephaestus.
Once she does, Charis tells her husband that Thetis is there to see him. Hephaestus says that Thetis will always be honoured in their home and explains how Thetis saved him when he suffered after his “great fall” from Olympus (remember that story I mentioned back in book one?). If it were not for her, he would have had much more suffering. He recounts how Thetis and Eurynome (a daughter of Ocean) found him once he had hit Lemnos and helped raise him. As Hephaestus grew, the pair gave him a workshop in a hollow cave where the stream of Ocean went on forever. It was here that he worked as a smith for nine years(!!!) and made many intricate things (like pins that bend back, cups, curved clasps, necklaces etc) to hone his craft. No one else knew about his little situation apart from Thetis and Eurynome: he stresses how they knew and they are the ones who saved him. Basically, that was a very long winded way of saying that now that Thetis is in his home, he wants to do EVERYTHING in his power to give recompense for his life. He instructs Charis to entertain her while he cleans up his instruments and what not, and he will follow in behind her shortly.
Charis leaves and Hephaestus turns to clean up all his tools. He wipes his forehead, neck, both hands and his hairy chest clean with a sponge and then put on a nice tunic. He takes up a heavy stick in his hand (much like a cane) and went to the doorway, limping his way towards Thetis.
Hephaestus asks Thetis why she’s come to his home. He says “we honour you and love you” (I can’t properly type out how cute I think he is — what a pudding!!!!) and then asks for Thetis to tell him why she’s there. If he can help her, he will do whatever he can.
At this, Thetis starts crying and says that she has endured the most sorrow out from Zeus. She stresses that she had to marry a mortal against her will and now that mortal husband is an old man. Her son was sent to Troy and now his fate has been secured: she will never be able to receive him at home again. Achilles is in pain and although she goes to him, she can not help him any longer.
(Side note: it’s important that I mention here that Thetis summarises the ENTIRE Iliad in this speech. So if you’ve read up until this point, everything that I have spoken about up to here is now repeated by Thetis to Hephaestus).
And so, hearing this Hephaestus says (something like) “No problem, you don’t have to worry. I wish I could hide Achilles away from this sorrow, but when his time comes to meet Hector on the battlefield he will have fine armour — so fine all the men are going to wonder at it”.
Hephaestus finishes speaking and leaves Thetis standing where she is. He turns towards the fire and gives his little attendants orders to begin working on the new armour. With that, he gets to work, starting with the shield. He then makes a corselet brighter than fire, and a helmet, huge and fitted closely on the temples with lovely intricate work. He adds leg armour made out of tin to accompany the set.
When Hephaestus finished the armour he goes to place it before Thetis. She takes it and runs down from Olympus, holding the gift from Hephaestus.
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Thumbnail Image: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/254476
Fragment of a terracotta relief
Greek, Attic ca. 600 BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 152
“Fragmentary relief depicting Achilles with a shield and spear, standing over a fallen figure (only partially extant). Inscribed upper right corner.The name Achilles and that of a fallen Amazon (Airia?) are inscribed on this relief.” (Copied from the Met Museum website).