Day 50: Achilles' Prayer to His Immortal Mother

Lines 348-58
ἡ δ' ἀέκους' ἅμα τοῖσι γυνὴ κίεν. αὐτὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς
δακρύσας ἑτάρων ἄφαρ ἕζετο νόσθι λιασθεὶς
θῖν ἔφ' ἁλὸς πολιῆς, ὁρόων ἐπ' ἀπείρουα πόντον·
πολλὰ δὲ μητρὶ φίλῃ ὴρήσατο χεῖρας ὀρεγνύς·
"μῆτερ, ἐπεί μ' ἔτεκές γε μινυνθάδιον περ ἐόντα,
τιμήν πέρ μοι ὄφελλεν Ὀλύμπιος ἐγγυαλίξαι
Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης· νῦν δ' οὐδέ με τυτθὸν ἔτισεν.
ἦ γάρ μ' Ἀτρεΐδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων
ἠτίμησεν. ἑλὼν γὰρ ἔχει γέρας, αὐτὸς ἀπούρας."

ὡς φάτο δάκρυ χέων, τοῦ δ' ἔκλυε πότνια μήτηρ
ἡμένη ἐν βένθεσσιν ἁλὸς παρὰ πατρὶ γέροντι.

And that woman went unwilling along with them.
But Achilles sat apart from his companions, turning away,
And fell into weeping on the shore of the gray and hoary sea,
Then, looking over the boundless water, he prayed hard
To his dear mother with outstretched hands:
"Mother, since you bore me to a life so brief,
Would that thundering Olympian Zeus grant to me
Great honor. And now he repays me not even a little.
For indeed the son of Atreus, wide ruling Agamemnon,
Dishonors me. In fact he deprives me to keep the prize himself."

Thus he spoke, his tears streaming, and his revered mother heard him
As she sat in the depths of the briny sea beside her aged father.



This scene is exemplary of the difference between the values and expectations of the age of these epics and our own. Here is Achilles, greatest of the Argive warriors, crying his eyes out on the beach because he lost his war prize. Can anyone imagine a modern war story including a picture like this. It is an excellent example of how attitudes change over time, in this case millenia. It brings to mind a short story I once read entitled The Maker by Jorge Luis Borges which is a brief account of the experience of being Homer, or that is the best way I can express it. There is a line which states that when the poet learned he was losing his sight he cried out, because Stoicism hadn't been invented yet...