yknow thinking about it, i find the scene in the iliad where priam goes to beg for hectorâs body far more emotional than anything else in the epic, even when achilles finds out that patroclus is dead.
because, in a way, itâs the most human part of the story. it is the moment when we realize just how tired everyone is, when we realize just how much has been lost. after all, priam has seen his people die at the hands of these greek invaders, has seen his children die, has faced the thought that his city will fall, and at the end of the day, he is forced to sneak into the greek camp to get the body of his son hector back just so that he can bury him and give his soul the rest it deserves.
and achilles, if you think about it, in a way heâs lost pretty much everything. as the son of a goddess, he should have immortality. but he is half-mortal and bears manâs tainted blood; even his mother, try as she might, cannot give him his godly due. as the greatest warrior among the greeks, he should be given the best of the war prizes, the greatest of honors. but agamemnonâs greed takes that from him, too. and then he loses patroclus, whom he loved above all else. and when he loses patroclus, he loses so much more. he goes on a rampage, he attacks a river god, he defiles the body of his enemy hector. by birth he is half-god, half-man. by virtue of the latter half he loses much of the reward of the former. and with patroclusâs death, he loses what he had left- his humanity.
but then there is this moment, when achilles is sitting in his tent and hears someone come in and turns to look and is astonished by the sight of priam, the king of the trojans, before him. there is this moment where priam sinks to his knees and kisses the hands that killed his sons and says to the warrior who fought a god in his rage remember your father and pity me.
and they cry together. for a moment, they are not the great greek warrior and the trojan king. they are two men who have lost so much and are tired. it doesnât last long- a few lines later, achilles warns priam of the danger heâs in and reminds him that he could, at any moment, kill him. but achilles still agrees to give hectorâs body back, he agrees to a truce so that the trojans can mourn. and when this happens, priam is not the only one who gets something back. achilles has let go of his anger- after all, the iliad is ultimately about his anger, and the funeral of hector marks the end of the epic- and in doing so he regains his humanity. in the midst of a terrible war, these two men from either side manage to share their grief and give each other so important a gift.
and to me, nothing in the iliad is more powerful than that.
