Tuesday, April 22, 2008

To Achilles, in the Afterlife


This allusion to Achilles is inspired by two poems: Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles and William Carlos Williams' To Mark Antony, in Heaven. But while Gluck's poetic thesis focuses on the human or carnal side of Achilles, mine is on his ultimate defeat brought about by his inevitable and absolute separation from Patroclus, who has drunk from the river of forgetfulness, the river Lethe. - H.P. Atilano

To Achilles, in the Afterlife

"You can keep your wrath while your countrymen go down in ruin, I cannot.
Give me your armour. If they think I am you... We might yet drive back the
enemy." - Patroclus to Achilles, The Iliad by Homer


By the River Lethe you must have passed and wept --
Wept long and hard over those footprints on the banks;
Remembering the friend you loved, your mortal half;
Remembering how he smelt of the Aegean Sea when he sweats;
Remembering how many times he cheated death
As if he, like you, is blest by Styx.

But immortal he was not; foolhardy was he --
By donning your armour, to Hades he fled.

And here you come, Achilles -- a lifetime too late!
So by the River Lethe you must have passed and wept.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Miss, in our Eng.104 class, you have shown this as a good example of a poem remake.

It is simple, yet the emotional impact is very strong. Imagine, Achilles actually wept so hard for his beloved friend. I guess he had no other option to express his sentiments but to cry it out loud.=) I can feel that he is very remorseful,and that reveals his soft side as a mighty warrior.


Labay lang man akon Miss,
I was stunned, but I come to realize and agree to your idea that Achillles' treatment to Patroclus is more of a lover than just a great friend.
Daw ka over sang pag care ni Achilles 2od...Pwede gid ya masal-an na agi. heheh'....

Vincent Pido said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vincent Pido said...

i think it's quite clear from all the literature written about them that achilles and patroclus were indeed more like lovers than mere platonic friends.

the greeks had always been ahead of their times, open-minded and liberated, thus they were also quite a homosexual society. which is not to say that they made it a point to be. i guess it just wasn't that big of an issue.

the poem manages to say all that in one or two sentences, which is quite a feat. haha

Vincent Pido said...

by the way, i think it's also important to note that the greeks did not even look at this culture as some erratic, strange or blasphemous psychosexual anomaly, but a normal (and quite prevalent) social practice, so it wouldn't surprise me if homer did intend to write achilles' and patroclus' relationship in that manner. thus, it should be regarded in the same context by the reader.

such relationships, i imagine, must have been widespread and openly accepted in the society at the time, so it would've been normal to find it eventually crawling its way into the literature of that era as well.

about the poem: i can definitely feel the sensual tension hidden
somewhere in those words, especially in the line "Remembering the friend you
loved, your mortal half; Remembering how he smelt of the Aegean Sea when he sweats", which suggests they've been intimate enough to actually smell each other's skin. normal friends, even brothers, aren't like that towards each other, as far as i know.

i'm glad ms. A captured that little detail because it shows the heroes in a different, less masculine and softer light. it doesn't mean to say they were obscene faggots squealing in joy as they tied each other's hair in long braids before they went off to battle. it simply shows how
greeks (those brilliant greeks) embraced their idiosyncracies, even
their tendencies to be effeminate, and did not think of it as something that would have made them less of a man or a warrior.

anyway, achilles' sorrow at the death of patroclus, to me, is more a lover's than a friend's. and ms. A's poem is more of a love poem than anything else. to me, at least. hehe

H said...

Thank you for this very cerebral review of "To Achilles, in the Afterlife," Vince. I', glad this poem is accessible enough and is communicating what it wants to communicate. Miss H.

count vladimir said...

"...Remembering how he smelt of the Aegean Sea when he sweats..." what a great way to insinuate intimacy.