14. RANSOM Section 4

With the assistance of Hermes, Priam and Somax enter the Greek camp unhindered.
Priam is ushered into the mess hut where Achilles has been sitting in the isolation of
his grief. Achilles feels the presence of Hermes and immediately becomes sensitive
to a transformation of being (‘He has moved into his mother’s element’). He
experiences a vision, at first mistaking Priam for the ghost of Patroclus, and then
more profoundly for his own father Peleus (‘Father?’); thus transporting Achilles back
in time to a clear vision of his father who he has not seen in nine years, the same
amount of time he has not seen his own son Neoptolemus. This is a telling moment
of misrecognition, in which Priam comes to stand for the figure of all grieving fathers,
Achilles included, who experiences the deep sensations of a son’s yearning for his
father, his double sense of loss, embodied now by the father of the man he has killed
and refused an honourable burial.

As he has planned, Priam addresses Achilles in plain language, something he has
been assisted in by hearing the earlier stories of Somax. Priam’s appeal addresses
Achilles as both a son and a father, evoking the inevitable mortality that sees time
pass in the natural ebb and flow of generations between fathers and sons. Achilles is
moved by Priam’s request (‘Beyond this old man who claims ... to be Priam, King of
Troy, hovers the figure of his father, which is too immediate in Achilles’ mind, too
disturbing, to be pushed aside’), and perhaps due to what he experiences as the
‘dreamlike quality’ of the moment, in which he ‘feels immobilised and outside time’,
accedes to Priam’s wishes. Achilles is, however, also overcome by another vision,
this time an apocalyptic one in which he sees the death of Priam at the hands of his
own son Neoptolemus — a revelation that also contributes to his ultimate act of
mercy and expiation of his own grief and guilt.

Achilles makes plans for the transfer of Hector’s body and watches entranced as a
group of women wash and prepare it for the journey back to Troy. The description of
this transfer has clear signs of Achilles anticipating his own death and the shared
fate that joins him to Hector. Priam leaves Achilles’ camp with a new sense of
wonder at the reality of the man, not the fearsome figure of the vengeful warrior,
intuiting that there is an understanding to be gained of his enemy that might avert the
fate of his people and city. Achilles farewells Priam with an offer of help at the
moment when the walls of Troy will inevitably fall. Priam answers with a fateful
caution of Achilles’ own impending death.