KC Podcast - Episode 117: Passing the Baton

Words That Can Break Your Heart

Rereading some Homer today. I am convinced that there is no more moving scene in all of literature than the one between Achilles and Priam in the last book of the Iliad. Every time I read this scene, I start to tear up when I think of these two great men on opposite sides of a bitter conflict. This is Book XXIV lines 503-512.

'Honour then the gods, Achilleus, and take pity upon me
remembering your father, yet I am still more pitiful;
I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through;
I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed my children.'

So he spoke, and stirred in the other a passion of grieving,
for his own father. He took the old man’s hand and pushed him
gently away, and the two remembered, as Priam sat huddled
at the feet of Achilleus and wept close for manslaughtering Hektor
and Achilleus wept now for his own father, now again

for Patroklos. The sound of their mourning moved in the house…

Comments

Erica said…
The reader for the audiobook I listened to did a great job with this part. He wasn't overly emotional but you could hear his voice start quavering a bit.
Rose said…
oh my.

Antigone does this to me as well...