“You are so capable of
loving. Yet why do you fight and kill
men?” Briseis asked.
“Fighting is not my
choice,” said Achilles having planted a passionate kiss on the ruby lips below
Brisei’s lilac eyes. Her eyes resembled
those of a gazelle, serene and pure. “I
inherited it from my father and his father and all the ancestors. One cannot wish away one’s ancestral
inheritance.”
“I wish you could,” said
Briseis wistfully. She had lost her husband,
father, mother and three brothers in the war led by Achilles’ people. She was delivered to Achilles for the
nocturnal pleasures of the day’s warrior.
Achilles looked at her as
the soldier dragged her along and threw her on Achilles’ bed in the tent. The gaze and the grace of the gazelle charmed
Achilles instantly. He sat beside her on
the bed and wiped away the blood from her ruby lips. But the lips still shone like ruby. He smelled her hair.
“You a royal?” he asked.
She refused to reply. He took his towel, squeezed it in the water basin
and wiped away the signs of masculine assault from her silky cheeks. “You are as beautiful as Helen,” he murmured.
Helen was the cause of the
war. Her beauty was the cause. Or was it?
Her husband, Menelaus, was a man incapable of love. He knew only to fight and kill. To conquer.
He too had inherited war in his veins. Helen wanted love. She wanted to grow old with her man and not
live in the palace like a priestess in Apollo’s temple.
Women, mused
Achilles. Strange creatures. They make us mad. They make us love and they make us
fight. I killed this woman’s husband,
her parents and brothers. My men
did. What’s the difference? And here I am now falling in love with
her.
Achilles killed the men of
her kingdom during the days and made love to her in the nights. He longed to stop the killing and return to
his own kingdom with his love.
“This is what women do to
men,” spat out Patroclus, Achilles’ cousin and his bosom friend. Patroclus walked out with Achilles’ armour
and helmet when the latter was in bed with his love. The army followed him. Achilles’ armour could not save
Patroclus.
“Please don’t kill Hector,”
pleaded Briseis as the news of Patroclus’ killing by Hector transmuted the
passion in Achilles’ veins. “He is my
cousin.”
“He killed my cousin,”
Achilles gnashed his teeth.
“How many cousins, how
many husbands, fathers and brothers have you killed?”
Achilles did not wait to
answer. He had answered that already. Days ago.
“Kings fight for land, fame or the booty,” he had told her.
“What do you fight for?”
“A thousand years from
now,” he said, “people will speak about Achilles.”
“A thousand years from now
even the dust of your bones won’t remain,” she reasoned.
“That’s why,” he
said. “That’s why.”
How much should the women
sacrifice for satisfying the egos of men?
The question grew in her heart and became an unbearable burden. It suffocated her. We are the toys in the hands of men; they
play with us to soothe their tired bodies and minds.
Achilles, her new husband,
was fighting with Hector, her old cousin.
The sun had set long
ago. Achilles had not returned. Briseis went to the fortress. She could already see flames engulfing
it.
Achilles lay dying waiting
for the flames to approach him and become his funeral pyre. Briseis took his head in her lap and held him
close to her bosom.
“We will meet again,” he
murmured. “In Elysium.”
Why couldn’t we create the
Elysium on the earth? The answer lay
dead in her lap.
Note: This is an episode taken from Homer's epic, Iliad. i have taken certain liberties while retelling the episode.
Everybody wants to go Elysium but nobody wants to enter the door to it - Death. Very Strange! What is the pleasure in unison if there is no separation? What is the significance of Bliss without Misery?
ReplyDeleteMy Prime Minister inspired this story, Ravish.
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