The Iliad is absolutely BRIMMING with parallels to drive home the significance of its themes, some less direct and others outright using the same words. My most favourite of the latter that I never stop thinking about being, for example- the parallel of "threes" between Patroclus and Achilles;
"Then would the sons of the Achaeans have taken high-gated Troy under the hands of Patroclus, as he raged ever forward with his spear, had not Phoebus Apollo on the strong-built tower taken his stand, with deadly deeds in mind for him, but help for the Trojans. Three times to the angled joint of the high wall went Patroclus, and three times Apollo smote him back, batting with immortal hands the shining shield." -The Iliad, Book 16, 698 - 705 (trans. Caroline Alexander)
"Then Achilles with blazing speed sprang forward, raging to kill, shouting his terrifying cry; but Apollo snatched Hector away lightly, god that he was, enfolded in dense mist. Three times swift-footed godlike Achilles charged with his bronze spear, and three times he struck at deep mist." -The Iliad, Book 20, 441 - 446 (trans. Caroline Alexander)
I could genuinely talk until the end of time on the endless ways in which the second half of the Iliad conveys Achilles and Patroclus as the same, from Patroclus fighting in Achilles' armour to Achilles mimicking Patroclus' very corpse in his grief in abstaining from all mortal pleasures of food and sleep, but the more I read the more I'm so captivated by the sheer depth of these parallels.
Today, however, in finishing Book 22 (not without being moved to tears of course), I was struck by an, albeit likely coincidental, parallel that extends beyond the Iliad. When Achilles fastens Hector's corpse to his chariot, it describes him doing so by "piercing the tendon between heel and ankle." Immediately, I was struck with the realisation that this is nearly same site in which Achilles is eventually struck by Paris and Apollo's arrow which causes his death (if following this particular mythos). Said detail of his death isn't even from the Iliad but added long after, and although it ties directly back to Thetis holding him from his ankle when dipping him in the Styx, I just COULD NOT unsee the parallel there!! The Iliad has so many moving themes, among them the endless cycle and devastation of war, but today this one struck me with such significance. Death begets death from the concept of the very act, one loss rippling into another, but also right down to the very specifics of intimate bodily detail.
I'm sure someone wiser than me could analyze and unpack this in a much more significant manner, and I'm very likely just reaching for ties that don't really exist, but for now I'm just so moved by it. I've been like, primed for parallels the more that I've read, and today was the first time I was directly struck with one that, to me at least, transcended the very source material itself. GOD I love the Iliad so much..!!
