The Iliad - Book 19 - The champion arms for battle
- Reading time: about 33 minutes
- Achilles returns to battle.
- Thetis presents Achilles with the magnificent armor
fashioned by Hephaestus. In addition, Thetis will
prevent Patroclus’ body from corruption.
- Significantly, Achilles renounces his anger and
expresses regret for all the loss of life due to the
rage between Agamemnon and himself.
- Observe how Homer has shaped Achilles' attitude: the
girl Briseis he dismisses as an afterthought who
should have been killed rather than to cause this
dispute. In 20 lines he dismisses his anger, which
has been nursed for the length of the epic till now.
- Agamemnon's speech is much longer. He blames Atê.
- Agamemnon blames Atê (Ath ) for his actions. Homer uses the same root word three times in these lines. Fagles translates Atê as "savage madness" on 102, "Ruin" on 106, and "she blinds us all" on 106. Agamemnon repeats his offer to give vast reparations, which Achilles had rejected in Book 9. Now he accepts them, but merely as an afterthought.
- Contrast Achilles and Odysseus. Remember that
Achilles has been raging in his tent while Odysseus
has been fighting and has been wounded. For Odysseus
it is not just the food that is important, it is the
need for a formal apology ceremony.
- Achilles inventories his life: he addresses his dead
friend, he recalls his father, mother, and son and
his hope that Patroclus would have gone home after
Achilles' own death to take care of Achilles' son.
Now neither will go home. He is prepared for his
final battle--to the death.
- The arming of Achilles echoes the arming of Patroclus
in Book 16.
The changes in Achilles
- Review Achilles on p. 470 & 478 and watch him throughout this book. He undergoes a great change of focus, the beginning of a transformation. Reflect on how and why these changes are occurring. How would you put into words what insights he is coming to. [Discuss Iliad Bk19 Q01]