Read Online The War That Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander - Free Book Online

portrays Helen as the remorseful agent of her own disastrous decision. “ ‘Did this ever happen?’ ” are her wondering words.
    Priam’s query as to the identity of the unknown regal warrior who turns out to be Agamemnon marks the beginning of an extended scene conventionally referred to as the Teichoskopia, or “Viewing from the Walls.” From the battlements of his city, with fair Helen beside him, the old king looks over the array of warriors gathered below and, pointing out one hero after another, asks who each is. His query and Helen’s response afford the opportunity for a series of vivid character sketches. That Priam in this tenth year of the war could be ignorant of the identity of Atreus’ son Agamemnon, lord of men and commander in chief of the Achaeans, is obviously implausible. Like the Catalogue of Ships, the entire sequence has been relocated from an earlier account of the beginning of the war, to serve as a theatrical prelude to the first scene of actual fighting:
    Next again the old man asked her, seeing Odysseus:
“Tell me of this one also, dear child; what man can he be,
shorter in truth by a head than Atreus’ son Agamemnon,
but broader, it would seem, in the chest and across the shoulders.”
    Helen’s identification of Odysseus, son of Laertes, a man raised “ ‘to know every manner of shiftiness and crafty counsels,’ ” is unexpectedly supplemented by Priam’s counselor, Antenor, who stands nearby:
    In his turn Antenor of the good counsel answered her:
“Surely this word you have spoken, my lady, can be no falsehood.
Once in the days before now brilliant Odysseus came here
with warlike Menelaos, and their embassy was for your sake.
To both of these I gave in my halls kind entertainment
and I learned the natural way of both, and their close counsels.
Now when these were set before the Trojans assembled
and stood up, Menelaos was bigger by his broad shoulders
but Odysseus was the more lordly when both were seated.
Now before all when both of them spun their speech and their
counsels,
Menelaos indeed spoke rapidly, in few words
but exceedingly lucid, since he was no long speaker
nor one who wasted his words though he was only a young man.
But when that other drove to his feet, resourceful Odysseus,
he would just stand and stare down, eyes fixed on the ground
beneath him,
nor would he gesture with the staff backward and forward, but
hold it
clutched hard in front of him, like any man who knows nothing.
Yes, you would call him a sullen man, and a fool likewise.
But when he let the great voice go from his chest, and the words
came
drifting down like the winter snows, then no other mortal
man beside could stand up against Odysseus. Then we
wondered less beholding Odysseus’ outward appearance.”
    Amid much else, Antenor’s justly famous characterization of one of the most enduring heroes in all mythology drops a casual reference to what had evidently been an attempt by both parties to avoid the war. “ ‘Their embassy was for your sake,’ ” he says in passing to Helen. That Odysseus is spoken of by the Trojans with open admiration, and even Menelaos with approbation, suggests the possibility of an optimistic outcome; what, one wonders, went wrong? 32
    This civilized interlude is interrupted by the appearance of the herald Idaios summoning Priam to seal the oaths so that the duel for Helen can begin. Priam, “shuddering,” sets out and makes a striking arrival, striding between the two armies. The oath taken by both parties to abide by the duel’s outcome is performed in a solemn ceremony, with prayers, libations, and sacrifice. Agamemnon, cutting the hairs from the heads of the lambs of sacrifice, himself offers a prayer to Zeus:
    â€œIf it should be that Alexandros slays Menelaos,
let him keep Helen for himself, and all her possessions,
and we in our seafaring ships shall take our way