Achilles died at Troy, shot by Paris’ arrow precisely in the
critical spot. Apollodorus gives half the credit to Apollo: “Achilles was shot
in the ankle by Alexander and Apollo at the Scaean Gates.” (Bibl. Epit. 5.4) This scene is set
outside the Trojan walls (πρὸς ταῖς Σκυλαιαῖς πύλαις). Apollodorus’ concise
narrative entails several intervening phases between Achilles’ death and the
construction of Epeus’ Horse (Epit. 6.15-17). In Apollodorus’ conglomerate account, the
Trojan War hardly comes to a close at Achilles’ death. Until Wolfgang Petersen
told the story (with David Beniot’s screenplay), it hadn’t occurred to me that
Achilles might have gotten inside the
city. And, if
he had penetrated the citadel, what might me have done?
Homer’s Iliad
focuses all the events of the Trojan War, of course, on the development and
cessation of Achilles’ rage. Sown in the quarrel with Agamemnon over Briseis in
Book 1, the persistent wrath of the godlike hero is abated in the Homeric
masterpiece-scene of Book 24. Once Priam receives Hector’s brutalized corpse,
the great epic narrative closes quickly. And details of Achilles’ own fate mix
into a quick narrative close. Achilles’ ill disposition is satisfactorily but
summarily concluded without further narrative development. It has all come down to this.
Extra-Homeric classical tradition attributes three major
events to the life of Achilles after the critical moment of ransoming Hector’s
body. Penthesileia still has Achilles’
heart to win. Thersites will still perish for his mockery of Achilles’ abiding
infatuation with the Amazon. And Memnon will still fall to Achilles’ prowess.
Nor does Homer take time to narrate the collective reaction to Achilles’ death,
the funeral games, the burial beside Patroclus on Leuke, the contest for
Achilles’ armor. These elements of the epic tradition are fully outside the
scope of Homer’s Achillean narrative, which effectively closes down at Il. 24.675. Once Achilles sees Peleus in
Priam, the world instantly changes, and the brutalizer becomes humane.
Homer’s final glimpse at Achilles has him lying down to
sleep with lovely Briseis inside his tent. Priam retires outside but beneath
the tent’s awning. Homer pays no attention to Achilles’ reaction to Priam’s
furtive departure in the night. Was he going to order a Myrmidon’s breakfast
for Priam in the morning? We never know. Instead, Homer’s Priam, safely
conveyed, tacitly oversees the burial of Hector that it proceed as Achilles had
provided (24.650-58). And within about 100 lines of Priam’s departure from
Achilles’ tent, the great epic closes tersely with one line: “Thus they
performed the burial of Hector breaker of horses.” (24.804) Just 150 lines
earlier, one might not have anticipated that outcome might never transpire.
The Ransom’s powerful denouement can scarcely be
understated. Narrating the Ransom’s conception, planning, execution, and effect
fill the entirety of Book 24. Apollo’s urging begins the events that reverse
the impasse that has pertained since the epic’s outset. The Ransom occupies the
space and pathos commensurate with its narrative importance. Achilles has
descended to beastial conduct; he emerges as the Greek alliance’s true king.
And Homer’s rhetorical approach leaves the poet with nothing further to tell.
About 20 minutes remain in Petersen’s film when Priam enters
Achilles’ tent by night. Repeated viewings find me asking myself whether the
scene resonates only because it’s Petersen’s truest re-creation of a poignant
Homeric moment. It succeeds because the scene’s internal elements correspond
quite closely to the narrative in Iliad
24, but perhaps there’s more. The interlocutors say less here than they do in
Homer.
Priam:
I cannot change what happened. It is
the will of the gods. Give me this small mercy.
Achilles:
silence
Priam:
I loved my boy from the moment he
opened his eyes until the moment you closed them. Let me wash his body. Let me
say the prayers. Let me place two coins
on his eyes for the boatman.
Achilles:
silence
— If I let you walk out of here… If
I let you take him, it doesn’t change
anything. — You’re still my enemy in the morning.
Priam:
You’re still my enemy tonight. But even
enemies can show respect.
Achilles:
silence
— I admire your courage. Meet me outside in a moment.
Besides merely ransoming Hector’s body, Petersen’s cinematic
scene narrates a three-fold expansion beyond Homer’s: Achilles’ expression of
affection for Hector (“my brother”), the relinquishment of Briseis to the
Trojans, the parting shot that Priam is, in Achilles’ judgment, “a far better
king than the one leading this army.” Homer needed the scene to do one thing. Petersen/Beniot require it to do three.
That indirect jab at the absent Agamemnon plays upon Petersen’s
primary theme in the film, that unworthy kingship is ugly. Accordingly, the
film’s narrative hinges on Achilles’ barb and cuts immediately to the face of
Agamemnon’s outrage: “What business does Achilles have cutting deals with the
enemy?!” Agamenon’s impiety is matched
only by his Gulf-War military mismangement: “Even if it costs me 40,000 Greeks,
I will smash their walls to the ground. Hear me, Zeus! I will smash their walls
to the ground.” Coming from a man who throughout the film has manifest nothing
but irreverence for the gods, this oath is scarcely reverend.
Achilles, on the other hand, comes away from the Ransom a
sincerely changed man. This is true both in Homer and in Petersen. In the film,
though, the hero now kisses men, living and dead, on the cheek and on the
forehead. He decides to withdraw the Myrmidons from the war’s finale. “I don’t want the men to be a part of this.” We
know they have twelve days to get out of Troy, the timeframe dictated by the
moratorium Achilles unilaterally offered as king to King Priam for Hector’s
funeral rites. Petersen’s Achilles, further, maintains an inclination to abide
Troy’s sack so that he can protect virtue to the last. One final beheading of a
Greek, one last kiss for Briseis, and he’s gone. Had he merely slipped away, Petersen’s
Achilles would not have perished.
This resumes the first matter I mentioned at the outset. Why does
Achilles stay at Troy, if he doesn’t want his men to “be part of” the sack of
Troy? In Petersen’s film, Achilles charges into the heart of burning Troy in
order to save Briseis from Agamemnon’s ravishment and (maybe) death. In the end
Achilles:
It’s all right. Its’ all right. Fondling
Briseis’ hair, as Paris comes closer for the kill. You gave me peace in a
lifetime of war.
Paris:
Briseis, Come.
Briseis:
No
Achilles:
You must. Troy is fallen. Go. Begin
anew. … It’s alright. Go. They kiss.
Go. She departs with Paris. Achilles dies peacefully. The POV rises upward to long crane shot tracking his soul’s POV, to contrast the grassy
lawn where Achilles's body lies with the burning houses of Troy. — Cut to Odysseus’
ponderous lighting of Achilles’ funeral pyre inside the Trojan citadel.
Odysseus:
places coins on Achilles’ eyes. Find
peace, My Brother.
Odysseus:
voice over: If they ever tell my story, let them say that I walked with
giants. Men rise and fall like the
winter wheat; but these names will never die. Let them say I lived in the time
of Hector, breaker of horses. Let them say I lived in the time of Achilles.
Because I promised — and tried to teach my class sincerely —
that I would not be distracted by Wolfgang Petersen’s narrative
“inauthenticities” in Troy, I will
gladly grant the poetic license the film’s direct uses throughout the film. I
bite my tongue, rather than gripe, that Achilles dies after Priam in the sack
of Troy. For Aeneid 2 to work,
Neoptolemus’ father Achilles must already be among the shades at the moment he
kills Priam. Vergil’s chronology always makes me uneasy, anyway. But I still
think that Vergil’s a great poet than Petersen, even if they do work in
different media.
Traditional tellings of the Iliupersis have Achilles
involved as agressor to the end, storming Troy’s citadel and stirring it up to
the last. Homer, of course, doesn’t go this far.
