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Achilles and Grief
<html><p xmlns:dct=“http://purl.org/dc/terms/”><a rel=“license” href=“http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/”><img src=“http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png” style=“border-style: none;” alt=“Public Domain Mark” /></a><br />This work (by <a href=“https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki” rel=“dct:creator”>https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki</a>), identified by <a href=“http://meninpublishing.org” rel=“dct:publisher”><span property=“dct:title”>Frank Redmond</span></a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p></html>
Authored by Frank Redmond, 2012
<blockquote>A black cloud of grief swallowed up Achilles.
With both hands he scooped up soot and dust and poured it
on his head, covering his handsome face with dirt,
covering his sweet-smelling tunic with black ash. </blockquote>
Simone Weil said that the Iliad is a poem above all else about the power of “force”. In this passage, you can sense the “force” that is overwhelming Achilles as he is “swallowed up”. In Homer, everything is slightly exaggerated, but in a good sense. Overwhelming might be a better word. The Iliad has the tendency to enrapture it's reader as much as Achilles was enraptured by the cloud of overwhelming grief.