The funeral games for Patroclus

The Greeks build the great pyre for Patroclus. Achilles cuts off a lock of his own hair — meant to have been dedicated to a river-god if he came home alive, useless to him now — and lays it in his friend's hand. Twelve Trojan prisoners are sacrificed on the pyre. Dogs and horses are killed and added. The body burns through the night while Achilles pours wine on the fire and calls Patroclus's spirit. Patroclus appears in a dream and asks for his bones to be kept with Achilles's own when Achilles too dies. Achilles agrees.

In the morning the bones are gathered, washed in wine, and placed in a golden urn. The funeral mound is raised. Then Achilles announces the funeral games and lays out the prizes: tripods, cattle, women, gold, horses. The book turns into a long, oddly festive sequence of competitions. The chariot race — a brilliantly drawn passage in which Antilochus beats his older rival by reckless cornering and Nestor, his father, watches grinning from the stands. The boxing match, won easily by Epeus, who knocks his man out with one punch. The wrestling match between Ajax and Odysseus, fought to a draw because neither will give. The foot-race, won by Odysseus when Athena trips Ajax in the sand. An archery contest, a spear-throwing contest, more.

Each event has its own small disputes and resolutions. Achilles, in this book, is unexpectedly gentle — he gives gifts even to losers, calms tempers when arguments break out, presides over the games like a host. The mood after twenty-two books of war is striking. After the violence the men play games. They eat together. They give each other prizes. The poem suggests, without saying it, that grief can sometimes be borne in this way — by ritual, by competition, by the company of friends. Hector's body, however, still lies in the dust outside the camp. Achilles drags it around Patroclus's tomb each morning. The grief is not over.