steel & temper

So I spent a couple of hours scouring the internet for memes about content I adore, because I write best when it’s about something that makes my heart go ka-thunk or has had a deep impact on me. But partly because I’ve too many NSFW memes of a nature that will have me locked up in a nunnery, lobotomized.

Finally, I found two and wrote a long ass explanation as opposed to the paragraph we had been asked to because moderation is for losers.

Here goes nothing:

The phrase "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" means that it is advisable to follow the conventions of the area in which one is residing or visiting. This Tumblr text post takes quite a literal meaning to the saying and alludes to the long morally ambiguous history of assassinating one's opponents, political or otherwise.

It particularly refers to the assassination of Julius Caesar, the celebrated Roman general and military veteran, statesman, praetor (the second highest of the Republic's elected magistracies), Pontifex Maximus (the priest of the highest order presiding above all in the Roman religion), and dictator of Rome. Understandably, such an impressive and extensive military and political portfolio led to Caesar having numerous enemies, especially with some of his political allies turning into conspirators of his assassination.

Hence, the meme talks about eliminating one's opposition in what is now considered a historically accurate and hilarious Roman characteristic.

So that was the first meme. Caesar should be the patron saint of victims of backstabbing. Lame? Okay, moving on to the second meme.

This one is about Patrochilles. The meme talks about Horatio and Hamlet too but it's been over a decade since I read Hamlet so I just wrote about my favourite mythical gay babies instead.

If you get easily offended, stop reading beyond this point. Also, no offense intended to any of the parties I accuse in the following text.

Due to retrograde notions of purity and chastity imposed in Europe by the Church, anything that differed in the slightest from the draconian claustrophobic moulds of cisgender heterosexuality, many allusions and canonical content regarding the spectrum of gender and sexuality were obliterated for millennia.

For instance, the Greek hero Achilles from Homer's Illiad, famed as Aristos Achaion ("the best of the Greeks") and one of the finest warriors to the west of the Aegean Sea, is noted for his role in the destruction of the impenetrable city of Troy by killing the eldest Trojan prince, Hector. This is the aftermath of the accidental killing of Achilles' philatos ("most beloved"), childhood companion and closest friend, Patroclus, by Hector who mistakes him for Achilles.

Upon discovering the murder of his beloved, Achilles sinks into a spiralling abyss of grief, refusing to move a muscle or do anything other than weep over the body of Patroclus for over a week. His heartbroken sobs could be heard over the clashes of battle and the deafening din of an army ten thousand strong, right down to the bottom of the ocean.

He laments his bereavement in words very much similar to the ones Hector's wife Andromache later uses at the death of her husband. Achilles collects Patroclus' ashes (traditionally considered a woman's job) after the latter appears to him in a dream begging for his funerary rights to be conducted so he can traverse down to Erebos for a peaceful afterlife.

He also cuts off locks of his golden hair to place over Patroclus' body as a sign of respect and love along with many other of his fellow soldiers. In a most touching act of love, he requests the army to mingle his ashes upon his own death with those of Patroclus' in the same funerary urn so that they can be one spiritually and physically for eternity.

Secondly, Achilles vows to avenge Patroclus' death before following his beloved down to the afterlife. This is the renowned "Rage of Achilles" which is referred to in the very opening lines of the Illiad ("Sing, goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus"). He overpowers and kills Hector, who was the finest Trojan warrior, as revenge for snuffing out the life of the one Achilles loved the most.

He does not consider death as retribution enough and drags Hector's corpse tied behind his chariot around the walls of Troy thrice, and proceeds to deny him funerary rights. The gods had to restrain Achilles from destroying Troy before the appointed timing which is proof that his rage could defy even the Fates.

Achilles' brutal actions arise from a place of overwhelming grief and understandably righteous rage. They originate not from hubris and cruelty but from heartbreak which shreds his humanity to pieces. Achilles was the offspring of a mortal king and a sea goddess; he was a god because his mother was one, he was human because Patroclus made him so. Once he lost his philatos, he lost hold of his humanity.

To anybody with a basic reading comprehension, this is an extremely touching story about a lifelong love, a story so central to the plot of the Illiad that the climax would not have existed had Achilles and Patroclus not loved each other as legendarily and devastatingly as they did. However, many vacuous scholars and historians refused to see it that way and decided to relegate it to simple platonic love.

This tragic young couple, dubbed Patrochilles as a portmanteau of their names by adoring fans, is emblematic of how LGBTQ history is strategically ignored and even rewritten. Patrochilles has regrettably been cast as sharing filial or storgic affection in order to deviously deceive the audience that their all-consuming love never crossed the bounds of 'decency' and strict dichotomous gender norms.

So... that's it. I got told off for making it too long but I simply told the lecturer that what I wrote is no compensation for how Patrochilles were rewritten as everything but the lovers they so clearly are.