Summary: Book 19
Thetis presents Achilles with the armor that Hephaestus
has forged for him. She promises to look after Patroclus’s body
and keep it from rotting while Achilles goes to battle. Achilles
walks along the shore, calling his men to an assembly. At the meeting,
Agamemnon and Achilles reconcile with each other, and Agamemnon
gives Achilles the gifts that he promised him should Achilles ever
return to battle. He also returns Briseis.
Achilles announces his intention to go to war at once.
Odysseus persuades him to let the army eat first, but Achilles himself
refuses to eat until he has slain Hector. All through breakfast,
he sits mourning his dear friend Patroclus and reminiscing. Even
Briseis mourns, for Patroclus had treated her kindly when she was
first led away from her homeland. Zeus finds the scene emotionally
moving and sends Athena down to fill Achilles’ stomach with nectar
and ambrosia, keeping his hunger at bay. Achilles then dons his
armor and mounts his chariot. As he does so, he chastises his horses,
Roan Beauty and Charger, for leaving Patroclus on the battlefield
to die. Roan Beauty replies that it was not he but a god who let
Patroclus die and that the same is fated for Achilles. But Achilles
needs no reminders of his fate; he knows his fate already, and knows
that by entering battle for his friend he seals his destiny.
Summary: Book 20
While the Achaeans and Trojans prepare for battle, Zeus
summons the gods to Mount Olympus. He knows that if Achilles enters
the battlefield unchecked, he will decimate the Trojans and maybe
even bring the city down before its fated time. Accordingly, he
thus removes his previous injunction against divine interference
in the battle, and the gods stream down to earth. But the gods soon
decide to watch the fighting rather than involve themselves in it,
and they take their seats on opposite hills overlooking the battlefield,
interested to see how their mortal teams will fare on their own.
Before he resigns himself to a passive role, however,
Apollo encourages Aeneas to challenge Achilles. The two heroes meet
on the battlefield and exchange insults. Achilles is about to stab
Aeneas fatally when Poseidon, in a burst of sympathy for the Trojan—and much
to the chagrin of the other, pro-Greek gods—whisks Aeneas away.
Hector then approaches, but Apollo persuades him not to strike
up a duel in front of the ranks but rather to wait with the other soldiers
until Achilles comes to him. Hector initially obeys, but when he sees
Achilles so smoothly slaughtering the Trojans, among them one of Hector’s
brothers, he again challenges Achilles. The fight goes poorly for
Hector, and Apollo is forced to save him a second time.
Analysis: Books 19–20
Although Achilles has reconciled with Agamemnon, his other actions
in Books 19 and 20 indicate
that he has made little progress as a character. He still demonstrates
a tendency toward the thoughtless rage that has brought so many
Achaeans to their deaths. He remains so intent on vengeance, for
example, that he initially intends for the men to go into battle
without food, which could prove suicidal in a form of warfare that
involves such great expenditures of physical energy. Similarly,
on the battlefield Achilles demonstrates an obsessive concern with
victory—to the exclusion of all other considerations. He cuts down
the Trojan Tros even though Tros supplicates him and begs to be
saved; it is apparent that Achilles has done little soul-searching.
Although he reconciles himself with the Achaean forces, this gesture
doesn’t alleviate his rage but rather refocuses it. He now lashes
out at the Trojans, expressing his anger through action rather than
through pointed refusals to act. Burning with passion, Achilles
rejects all appeals to cool-headed reflection; the text compares
him to an “inhuman fire” and, when he dons his shining armor, likens
him to the sun (20.554).
This imagery recalls his portrayal in Book 1 as
“blazing Achilles” (1.342).
Indeed, Achilles’ internal dilemma as a character remains
largely the same as in the beginning of the epic. Achilles has known throughout
that his fate is either to live a short, glorious life at Troy or
a long, obscure life back in Phthia. Now, as before, he must choose
between them. Although he still feels torn between the two options,
the shock of Patroclus’s death has shifted the balance in favor
of remaining at Troy. There is little reason to believe that Achilles
would have made up his mind without such a powerful catalyst for
his decision.
