It was Helen's face that launched a
thousand ships, but you unleashed
Achilles. How were you to know
that poets would sing of his rage?
- that innumerable men would
meet their deaths at the end of his
grief-stricken spear? How were you
to know when you went to battle
in his armor that you would never
return to him? - that you had
brought about his death as surely
as your own? He wept - and his
mother in the hepths of the sea
heard his cries. He wept - and he
dirtied his face, and tore at his
hair, and wished for death. Eternal
glory was not worth the price he
paid. It was not worth the loss of
you, Patroclus, whom he loved as
his own life. What was Achilles to
do when his heart burned with
you on the pyre? What was he to
do when his heart burned with
nothing but ashes in a golden urn?
He was nearly a god-son of a
goddess, best of the Greeks. He fell
to an arrow, the poets say, guided
by Apollo himself. The poets are
wrong. He was nearly a god- but
he was mortal, and he fell to that
great mortal weakness: love. You
would have followed him
anywhere, even into death. You
must have known that he would do
the same.