WEBVTT
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Episode 11 – Love and Death
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[Opening music]
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The day after Hector’s funeral the awful tumult resumed.
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And, out on the battlefield,
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Achilles was in the thick of the battle,
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severing heads with every stroke of his sword.
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That night he was back on the battlefield,
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wrapped in a black cloak,
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clambering over the corpses,
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making his way so that he could look up at the tops of the walls of Troy,
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scanning them, desperate for a glimpse of that pretty Trojan princess, Polyxena.
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Day after day he fought.
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Night after night he skulked,
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until eventually, exasperated,
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he bribed a Trojan foot soldier to take a note to her,
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begging her to meet him outside the walls in an ancient grove of olive trees.
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And Polyxena read that letter and she remembered Achilles,
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she remembered his beauty.
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She looked at the golden ring on her finger and she was filled with love and longing for him.
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And that night, when the sky was bright with stars,
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she wrapped the black cloak over her shoulders and she hurried through the streets of Troy and through a secret gate,
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and across the plain to the olive grove.
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Some of the trees were still standing and some were splintered,
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lying on the ground.
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And as she drew close,
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Achilles stepped out of the shadows and she ran into his arms.
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And those hands that had so recently been the death of her brother,
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fondled her tenderly.
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And they lay down on the grass together,
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locked in one another’s arms.
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But nothing is hidden from the mighty gods and goddesses.
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And high overhead Aphrodite, the goddess of love,
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called to golden Apollo and she said,
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“Apollo, look at this!
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Look at this!
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Look what I’ve made happen!”
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And Apollo looked down and he said,
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“Shameless Polyxena!
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Shameless, shameless Aphrodite!”
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And Aphrodite said,
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“But Apollo, don’t you understand?
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This is our chance.
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Go to Paris.
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Tell him that his sister, Polyxena,
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has taken a lover, a Greek lover.
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Tell him to follow her tomorrow night,
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with a bow and a quiver full of arrows,
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and I’ll put what words I can into Polyxena’s mouth.”
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And suddenly Apollo understood.
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And he threw back his head and he shouted with laughter.
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And, as swift as thought,
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he flew through the air into Troy,
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into the palace of Paris,
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into the bedchamber,
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where Paris was lying asleep in Helen’s arms.
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And golden Apollo entered Paris’ dreams.
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“Paris, did you know that your sister, Polyxena,
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has taken a lover, a Greek lover.
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Follow her tomorrow night with a bow and a quiver full of arrows.”
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And in that moment Paris woke up,
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with the words echoing in his mind.
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And all the next day he watched his sister, Polyxena,
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but she gave no clue, no hint, no indication,
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until the night came and the sky brightened with stars and he saw her hurrying through the streets in a black cloak and through a secret gate.
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And he grabbed a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
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And he followed her.
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He followed her across the plain.
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He saw the grove of olive trees.
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He saw a figure stepping out of the shadows.
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He saw Polyxena running into his arms.
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And then Paris felt a cold shudder from the nape of the neck to the root of the spine.
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Achilles!
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He flattened himself against the ground.
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He pressed his face into the dirt,
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hardly daring to breathe.
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And, as he lay there,
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he could hear the lovers talking and laughing.
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And then he heard the sound of them lying down together.
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And Paris lifted his head.
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He peered over the trunk of a fallen tree.
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He could see Achilles.
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He could see the back of his head, his shoulders,
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the small of his back, the backs of his legs, his heels.
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And then he heard Polyxena say,
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“My lover, I don’t understand.
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You have been fighting in this war for as long as I can remember,
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since I was five years old.
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And yet you’re unscratched.
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There’s no mark, no bruise, no scar on your body.
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Why?”
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And Achilles said, “Polyxena,
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when I was a baby my mother, Thetis,
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carried me down to the dark waters of the river Styx.
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She lowered me into the river.
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Wherever the water touched I am invulnerable.
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I cannot be harmed.
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The only place I can be harmed is where she held me,
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my heel.”
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Paris drew an arrow from the quiver.
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He fitted the arrow to the bowstring.
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He drew the bowstring back.
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He loosed the arrow.
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And it would have gone wide, wide of its mark,
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if golden Apollo had not been watching and waiting.
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He seized it as it flew through the air.
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He ran across and he plunged the point of it into Achilles’ heel.
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And a great shudder went through Achilles’ body and the life went out of him in one breath.
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And Paris leapt to his feet.
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“Achilles is dead!
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Achilles is dead!”
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He ran back to the city.
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He ran from street to street.
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“Achilles is dead!
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Achilles is dead!”
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In every house lanterns were lit,
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doors were thrown open,
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people came running into the streets.
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“Achilles is dead!
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Achilles is dead!”
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Back in the Greek camp,
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King Odysseus was woken by a great commotion.
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He searched for the source of the sound.
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He found himself before Achilles’ stables.
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He opened up the doors.
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There were the wonderful white horses,
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rearing up in the air,
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kicking the air with their front legs,
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kicking at their stalls with their back legs,
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rolling their great eyes, snorting.
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Odysseus harnessed them to a chariot.
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They took him out of the camp,
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out across the blasted battlefield,
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until he was near the walls of Troy –
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to an ancient olive grove.
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Odysseus climbed down.
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He made his way from behind one tree to the next until he found a girl,
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a Trojan girl,
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kneeling in the grass, weeping, her shoulders shaking.
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And, in front of her, lying, stretched out, lifeless –
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the body of Achilles!
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Achilles was dead!
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He pushed her away.
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He gathered up the body back into the chariot and back to the Greek camp.
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“Achilles is dead!
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Achilles is dead!”
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The great bronze Scaean gates of the city were thrown open and the people followed Paris across the plain to the olive grove.
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But there was no sign of Achilles.
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There was only Polyxena,
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sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and looking at the ring on her finger as it dribbled blood down the back of her hand,
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down her arm and the blood was dripping from her elbow onto the earth.
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By the time King Odysseus returned to the Greek camp,
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everyone was awake.
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They followed him with flaming torches from the gates to the gathering place.
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He lifted the slight body of Achilles out of the chariot and laid it in the mud and the men around him gasped.
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He looked serene in death.
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All through his life Achilles’ face had been twisted with passion,
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with worry and care.
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But now all those passions were gone.
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It was as though he was asleep.
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As they feasted on his beauty,
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his mother came from the sea,
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her face shrouded in a veil.
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She scooped up the body of her son
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and, as though he was still alive,
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as though he was a little boy who could not sleep,
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she rocked him.
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She sang to him.
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The men went back to their huts.
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They left mother and son alone together.
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She burned his body.
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And, as Thetis watched the flames rise up,
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she thought of her wedding day,
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the happiest day of her life.
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How full of hope she’d been!
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She thought of all the wonderful wedding gifts:
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the spear, the golden breastplate,
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the wonderful ring, the four white horses, the ant warriors…
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and then she remembered the last gift.
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And she walked to Achilles’ hut and there inside in the corner, squatting, gathering shadows,
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there it was, the gift of the god of the dead.
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A black urn.
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Inlaid in silver across its front, a picture,
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an image of three goddesses, the three Fates.
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The first who spins out the thread of a life,
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the second who measures out the life’s length
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and the third who cuts it.
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She picked up the urn.
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She found the ashes of Patroclus and put them in.
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She went outside.
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Now the pyre was only glowing ashes, shining bones.
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She put those ashes and bones into the urn and mingled them with those of Patroclus.
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Then she walked out of the camp.
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She carried the urn, the ashes,
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out of the sight, out of the reach of any mortal man.
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She buried it on a headland that overlooks the sea.
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And, when she had finished, she said,
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“My dear child,
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not for you the stretching shadow,
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not for you the ripening grape,
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not for you the joy of children.
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You chose glory.”
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[Closing music]