The Iliad Patroclus Quotes

They were afraid, they held the king in awe
and stood there, silent. Not a word to Achilles.
not a question. But he sensed it all in his heart,
their fear, their charge, and broke the silence for them:
"Welcome. couriers! Good heralds of Zeus and men.
here, come closer. You have done nothing to me.
You are not to blame. No one but Agamemnon –
he is the one who sent you for Briseis.
Go, Patroclus, Prince, bring out the girl."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 390-398. When Agamemnon’s messengers arrive at Achilles’s camp to take Briseis, looking fearful, Achilles attempts to put at ease. Offering a hand of friendship, he assures them that he attributes no blame to them, but to Agamemnon alone. He orders his close friend and confidant Patroclus to bring out the girl.

How his spirit leapt when he heard those horrors –
and buckling his gleaming armor round his body,
out he rushed to war.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 9, lines 723-725. The Myrmidon warrior Phoenix tells Achilles the story of the great Aetolian warrior prince Meleager, that foreshadows Achilles’s return to battle. During the Aetolians war with the Curetes, Meleager left the battle to stay in bed with his wife Cleopatra. Eventually Cleopatra prevailed on him to rush back to war by "recounting all the griefs that fall to people whose city’s seized and plundered – the men slaughtered, citadel burned to rubble, enemies dragging the children, raping the sashed and lovely women." Achilles will also rush back to war when the grief falls close to home with the killing of his closest friend Patroclus by Hector.

He called at once to his friend-in-arms Patroclus,
shouting down from the decks. Hearing Achilles,
forth he came from his shelter,
striding up like the deathless god of war
but from that moment on his doom was sealed.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 11, lines 710-714. Achilles shouts out to his friend Patroclus, to ask him to go to the Achaean camp to find out about the casualties, thinking they must be desperate for his help. When Patroclus strides out of his hut he is compared in a simile to god of war Ares. From that moment his fate and doom are sealed, Homer says, forshadowing the death of Achilles’s friend.

And let Apollo drive Prince Hector back to battle,
breathe power back in his lungs, make him forget
the pains that rack 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, 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, all the way.
till Achaean armies seize the beetling heights of Troy
through Athena’s grand design.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 15, lines 75-90. Zeus is speaking to his wife Hera, laying out the plan for the events to come. There is not much room for free will here, with each character’s fate predetermined and controlled by the gods. Apollo will drive Hector back to battle, this will launch Patroclus into action, Hector will slay him with a spear, an enraged Achilles will take Hector down, Zeus will turn the tide of war and the Greeks will seize Troy through Athena’s grand plan. A great deal of things are foreshadowed here.

Why in tears, Patroclus?
Like a girl, a baby running after her mother,
begging to be picked up, and she tugs her skirts,
holding her back as she tries to hurry off – all tears,
fawning up at her she takes her in her arms…
That’s how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 7-12. When Patroclus returns to Achilles’s camp, crying with pity over the Achaean losses, Achilles says this to him. Patroclus is likened in an epic simile to a baby girl running after her mother tugging her skirts, all tears.

And give me your own fine armor to buckle on my back,
so the Trojans might take me for you, Achilles, yes,
hold off from attack, and Achaea’s fighting sons
get second wind, exhausted as they are…
Breathing room in war is all too brief.
We’re fresh, unbroken. The enemy’s battle-weary –
we could roll those broken Trojans back to Troy,
clear of the ships and shelters!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 46-53. Patroclus asks Achilles to give him his armor to wear in battle. He hopes to demoralize the Trojans by getting them to think that Achilles had returned to the fight.

Even so, Patroclus, fight disaster off the ships,
fling yourself at the Trojans full force –
before they gut our hulls with leaping fire
and tear away the beloved day of our return.
But take this command to heart – obey it to the end.
So you can win great honor, great glory for me
in the eyes of all the Argive ranks, and they,
they’ll send her back, my lithe and lovely girl,
and top it off with troves of glittering gifts.
Once you have whipped the enemy from the fleet
you must come back, Patroclus. Even if Zeus
the thundering lord of Hera lets you seize your glory,
you must not burn for war against these Trojans,
madmen lusting for battle – not without me –
you will only make my glory that much less.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 92-106. When Achilles lends his armor to Patroclus, he tells tells him that Patroclus can win great honor and glory for him and he will get back his "lithe and lovely girl" Briseis. But Achilles warns him that when he drives the Trojans away from the Greek ships, he must come back, even if Zeus allows him seize this glory. If Patroclus goes on to pursue battle against the Trojans without Achilles, that would make lessen Achilles’s glory, he tells Patrocles. The fact that Achilles is more interested in his own glory than his friend’s safety only serves to demonstrate Achilles’s major character flaw, excessive pride.

Patroclus armed himself in Achilles’ gleaming bronze.
First he wrapped his legs with the well-made greaves,
fastened behind the heels with silver ankle-clasps,
next he strapped the breastplate round his chest,
blazoned with stars – swift Achilles’ own –
then over his shoulder Patroclus slung the sword,
the fine bronze blade with its silver-studded hilt,
and then the shield-strap and the sturdy, massive shield
and over his powerful head he set the well-forged helmet.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 156-164. Patroclus prepares for battle by donning Achilles’s armor, as the Trojans succeed in setting fire to one of the Achaean ships in the battle for the ships.

Myrmidons,
battalions ranged in armor with greathearted Patroclus,
moving out now, the fury bursting inside them,
suddenly charged the Trojans –
they swarmed forth like wasps from a roadside nest
when boys have made it their sport to set them seething,
day after day tormenting them round their wayside hive –
idiot boys! they make a menace for every man in sight.
Any innocent traveler passing them on that road
can stir them accidentally – up in arms in a flash,
all in a swarm come pouring, each one raging down
to fight for home and children –
Such frenzy seized their hearts,
Myrmidons pouring out of the ships, ceaseless shouts rising.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 302-314. The image of a swarm of angry wasps pouring from their nest and raging down is used in an extended simile to describe the Myrmidons and Patroclus attacking the Trojans by the ships.

Patroclus rising beside him stabbed his right jawbone,
ramming the spearhead square between his teeth so hard
he hooked him by that spearhead over the chariot rail,
hoisted, dragged the Trojan out as an angler perched
on a jutting rock ledge drags some fish from the sea,
some noble catch, with line and glittering bronze hook.
So with the spear Patroclus gaffed him off his car,
his mouth gaping round the glittering point
and flipped him down face first
dead as he fell, his life breath blown away.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 480-489. The brutal barbarity of war is graphically and matter-of-factly presented by Homer, and indeed accepted as a normal part of life by the characters in his epic poem. In this passage the epic simile of an angler and his "noble catch" is used by the poet to describe the gruesome spearing and slaying of the Trojan Thestor by Patroclus.

He struck him right where the midriff packs the pounding heart
and down Sarpedon fell as an oak or white poplar falls
or towering pine that shipwrights up on a mountain
hew down with whetted axes for sturdy ship timber –
so he stretched in front of his team and chariot,
sprawled and roaring, clawing the bloody dust.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 569-574. Sarpedon, struck and killed by Patroclus’s spear, is described in an epic simile as falling down like a big tree axed by shipwrights for ship timber.

Grief for his dead companion seized Patroclus now,
he tore through frontline fighters swift as a hawk
diving to scatter crows and fear-struck starlings –
straight at the Lycians, Patroclus O my rider,
straight at the pressing Trojan ranks you swooped,
enraged at your comrade’s death!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 679-684. In a bid to avenge his dead companion Epeigeus, an enraged Patroclus tears through the Lycians and Trojan ranks. Homer in one of his many epic similes compares Patroclus to a hawk diving through crows and frightened starlings.

Look what a springy man, a nimble, flashy rumbler!
Just think what he’d do at sea where the fish swarm –
why, the man could glut a fleet, diving for oysters!
Plunging overboard, even in choppy, heaving seas,
just as he dives to ground from his war-car now.
Even these Trojans have their tumblers – what a leap!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 868-873. This is one of the most famous examples of an extended metaphor in The Iliad, describing how Patroclus kills Hector’s charioteer and half-brother, Kebriones. The charioteer’s body is hurled high into the air before it falls to the ground. Patroclus speaks of Kebriones as an acrobat and a diver for oysters in the extended metaphor.

So you sprang at Cebriones, full fury, Patroclus,
as Hector sprang down from his chariot just across
and the two went tussling over the corpse as lions
up on the mountain ridges over a fresh-killed stag –
both ravenous, proud and savage – fight it out to the death.
So over the driver here and both claw-mad for battle,
Patroclus son of Menoetius, Hector ablaze for glory
strained to slash each other with ruthless bronze.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 878-885. Pride, honor and glory are at stake as Patroclus and Hector fight over the body of Hector’s charioteer Cebriones. They are compared to two lions fighting to the death over a freshly killed stag.

Patroclus never saw him coming,
moving across the deadly rout, shrouded in thick mist
and on he came against him and looming up behind him now –
slammed his broad shoulders and back with the god’s flat hand
and his eyes spun as Apollo knocked the helmet off his head
and under his horses’ hoofs it tumbled, clattering on
with its four forged horns and its hollow blank eyes
and its plumes were all smeared in the bloody dust.
Forbidden before this to defile its crest in dust,
it guarded the head and handsome brow of a god,
a man like a god, Achilles. But now the Father
gave it over to Hector to guard his head in war
since Hector’s death was closing on him quickly.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 917-929. Apollo knocks Achilles’s helmet off Patroclus and Zeus gives it to Hector to protect his head, as Hector’s death is said to be closing on him quickly. This foreshadows that Hector has not long to live, for while he escapes immediate death at the hands of Patroclus, he will soon be killed by Achilles in revenge for his friend’s slaying.

Patroclus though – the spear in his grip was shattered,
the whole of its rugged bronze-shod shadow-casting length
and his shield with straps and tassels dropped from his shoulders,
flung down on the ground – and lord Apollo the son of Zeus
wrenched his breastplate off. Disaster seized him –
his fine legs buckling –
he stood there, senseless.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 930-935. When Patroclus disobeys Achilles’s instructions to pursue Hector and his men all the way to the walls of Troy and kill many Trojans in a series of charges, the god Apollo enters the battle as an ally of Hector. He sneaks up behind Patroclus and hits him so hard on the back that his helmet flies off, his spear is shattered, his shield drops from his shoulders, and his breastplate is torn off by Apollo. Apollo’s intervention will enable Hector to kill Patroclus.

Down he crashed – horror gripped the Achaean armies.
As when some lion overpowers a tireless wild boar
up on a mountain summit, battling in all their fury
over a little spring of water, both beasts craving
to slake their thirst, but the lion beats him down
with sheer brute force as the boar fights for breath –
so now with a close thrust Hector the son of Priam
tore the life from the fighting son of Menoetius,
from Patroclus who had killed so many men in war.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 958-966. The Achaean armies are horrified as Hector delivers the fatal blow to Patroclus, spearing him deep in the bowels and out through his back. The image of a lion overpowering a wild boat on a mountain summit is used to describe the slaying in an epic simile.

Hector! Now is your time to glory to the skies…
Now the victory is yours.
A gift of the Son of Cronus, Zeus – Apollo too –
they brought me down with all their deathless ease,
they are the ones who tore the armor off my back.
Even if twenty Hectors had charges against me
they’d all have died here, laid low by my spear.
No, deadly fate in league with Apollo killed me,
From the ranks of men, Euphorbus. You came third,
and all you could do was finish off my life.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 986-995. When Hector fatally stabs Patroclus with his spear, Patroclus calls into question the Trojan’s pride as a successful warrior in battle. He reminds Hector that he is only his third slayer, after being knocked down by Apollo and then wounded by Euphorbus. All Hector could do was finish off his life, he says. Hector’s victory and glory is a gift of Zeus and Apollo, he tells him.

And Atrides gave ground, he left the corpse
but kept on turning round to face an attack –
like a great bearded lion the dogs and field hands
drive back from the folds with spears and sharp cries
and the brave, battling heart in his chest freezes tight
and the big cat, all reluctance, pulls back from the sheds.
So the red-haired captain backed away from Patroclus’ corpse.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 17, lines 124-130. Menelaus gives ground to the waves of Trojan soldiers and backs away from the corpse of Patroclus. He is likened in Homer’s extended simile to a big bearded lion being driven back by dogs and field hands with spears.

But Ajax,
shielding Patroclus round with his broad buckler,
stood fast now like a lion cornered round his young
when hunters cross him, leading his cubs through wood –
he ramps in all the pride of his power, bristling strength,
the heavy folds of his forehead frowning down his eyes.
So Ajax stood his ground over brave Patroclus now.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 17, lines 151-157. In this epic simile Great Ajax is compared to a lion protecting its young from hunters, as he defends the body of Patroclus from the Trojans.
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