Chapter 12
That night I dreamt of Achilles as he might’ve been toward the end—older, but not necessarily wiser, his beautiful face swollen in sorrow and lined in weariness.
He knelt atop a hill in profile, his backside resting lightly on his sandaled heels. Next to him stretched the body of Hector, so bloodied and mutilated by being dragged behind Achilles’ chariot that he was barely recognizable as a man.
This was not the preserved-in-death Hector of art, or even of Homer, but the Hector of real war, of life.
As I watched him, Achilles stared back at me, as if daring me to judge him.
What is the real nature of dishonor? It is this—a rejection that disregards the rejected’s true value. Agamemnon rejected Achilles’ sound judgment and piety toward the gods, honestly offered, and Achille
