The Silence of the Girls: Chapter 35 Summary & Analysis

Every morning, Achilles goes to Patroclus and kisses him on the mouth before battle. Briseis longs to tell him to cremate the body, which has begun to smell, but she doesn’t. At night Achilles goes into the room with Patroclus’s body and won’t allow anyone else in. Briseis hears Achilles say “not yet” and assumes Achilles is telling the body that he hasn’t yet killed Hector. Occasionally Alcimus peeks in, and he and Briseis see Achilles standing by Patroclus—who is raised on a frame called a “bier”—with his head on his dead friend’s chest. Once Alcimus hears Achilles groan and tries to enter, only for Briseis to stop him. When Alcimus protests that they shouldn’t leave Achilles alone, Briseis replies: “He is alone.” 

After five days, the Greeks break through the Trojan line. The Trojan fighters flee inside the gates of Troy. King Priam and Queen Hecuba both urge Hector to hide too, but he stays outside to fight Achilles. Briseis has been watching the battle from a Greek ship, but at that she goes back to the women’s huts, unwilling to watch. All the women know Troy is about to be conquered, destroying their hopes of being freed, but they go on weaving like something terrible will happen if they stop. Then, from far away, they hear women wailing—and they realize that Hector, “the last and greatest defender of Troy,” has been killed.