Quotes & Sayings About Patroclus

The heat rose up my neck, wrapped fingers over my face. His hair fell around me, and I could smell nothing but him. The grain of his lips seemed to rest a hairsbreadth from mine. — Madeline Miller

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough. — Madeline Miller

When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together. — Madeline Miller

He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return. — Madeline Miller

And overpowered by memory
Both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely
For man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching
Before Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself,
Now for his father, now for Patroclus once again
And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house. — Homer

We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. — Madeline Miller

In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place — Madeline Miller

We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. — Madeline Miller

For Achilles, the death of Patroclus pushed him into a fury, but it was not only grief that drove him. It was also a sense of shame and guilt because he had not been there to protect his friend. Sometimes men in combat feel this sort of survivor's guilt even though, realistically, they could have done nothing to prevent their comrade's death. — Nel Noddings

My lord, it is Patroclus, he is dead, his armour taken.. Hector is to blame.' There was a chilling silence, then a sudden intake of breath. Then a cry, low rising, increasing, then torn out of him, turned out of the depth of Hades... For Achilles, the only word 'Patroclus. — Byrne Fone

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence. — Madeline Miller

Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only. — Madeline Miller

He stands apart with Patroclus, his beloved through all eternity, and Patroclus - who loves Achilles but not as much as he is loved - waits for Achilles to move. His deference to Achilles is different from that of others, They honour and respect him, keep a wise distance, because Achilles was better than the rest. Better at being human. Fighting, singing, speaking, raging (oh, he is good at that still). Killing. But Patroclus alone is humbled by Achilles' love. Only a fool thinks that to be more loved than loving gives you power. Only a fool vaunts it and displays his own littleness by bragging to his friends and making capricious demands of his lover. Patroclus isn't a fool. He knows that he is less than Achilles even in this. Humbled by the intensity of Achilles' love he loves him back with all his large, though lesser, heart. — Elizabeth Cook

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. — Madeline Miller

I think: this is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: how long do we have? — Madeline Miller

As for the goddess's answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone. — Madeline Miller

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying. — Thomas C. Foster

This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter. — Madeline Miller

Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs on her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off - all tears, fawning up at her, till she takes her in her arms ... That's how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears. — Homer

our contemporary ideas about manliness, reflected in action movies and westerns, generally prohibit so-called real men from displaying high emotion, with the exception of anger. John Wayne doesn't cry. By contrast, Achilles, the epitome of manliness in Homer's Iliad, weeps openly and at length over the loss of his friend Patroclus. — Thomas Van Nortwick

This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old. — Madeline Miller

He is half my soul, as the poets say. — Madeline Miller

Never on me let such wrath lay hold, as the wrath you cherish, you whose valor causes harm! — A.T. Murray

And let Apollo drive Prince Hector back to battle,
breathe power back in his lungs, make him forget
the pain that racks his heart. Let him whip the Achaeans
in headlong panic rout and roll them back once more,
tumbling back on the oar-swept ships of Peleus' son Achilles.
And he, will launch his comrade Patroclus into action
and glorious Hector will cut him down with a spear
in front of Troy, once Patroclus has slaughtered
whole battalions of strong young fighting men
and among them all, my shining son Sarpedon.
But then - enraged for Patroclus -
brilliant Achilles will bring Prince Hector down.
And then, from that day on, I'll turn the tide of war:
back the fighting goes, no stopping it, ever. — Homer

More than a hygenic method of disposing of the dead, cremation enabled lovers and comrades to be mingled together for eternity:
The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus; All Urnes contained not single ashes; Without confused burnings they affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living Unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections concieved some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lye Urne by Urne, and touch but in their names. — Catharine Arnold

We were a bookish family. we loved our books, but before long they were lined up next to the stove and my mother and my uncle fought over which should go first and which should be saved to the very last. The Iliad was a beautiful first edition, the pride of our library, but it too went: Agamemnon, king of men, Nestor, flower of Achaean chivalry, the Black Ships, Patroclus' corpse, Helen's bracelets, Cassandra's shrieks, all met the flames, for he sake of two or three suppers. My uncle was loath to let Mark Twain go...Huckleberry Finn and his river did not deserve such an ignominious end. — Edna O'Brien

L. 151. Chthizos, yesterday. But either the word must have a more extended signification than is usually given to it, or Homer must here have fallen into an error; for two complete nights and one day, that on which Patroclus met his death, had intervened since the visit of Ajax and — Homer

Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life
A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
When a man will take my life in battle too
flinging a spear perhaps
Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow. — Homer

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. — Madeline Miller

That is - your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved. — Madeline Miller

He called at once to his companion Patroclus, shouting for him from the ship. Hearing the call in his hut, Patroclus equal of Ares came out; and that was the beginning of his end. — Homer

The Triumph Of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal. — Louise Gluck

I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS.
"Go," she says. "He waits for you. — Madeline Miller

Peleus acknowledged this. "Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?"
"I will tell them nothing." The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. "It is not for them to say what I will do. — Madeline Miller

Indeed, he seemed utterly unaware of his effect on the boys around him. — Madeline Miller

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name. — Madeline Miller

Achilles' eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. I wish he had let you all die. — Madeline Miller

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. — Madeline Miller

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.
As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.
"Patroclus," he said. He was always better with words than I. — Madeline Miller