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Ajax
Chryseis, the daughter of a Trojan priest of Apollo, is a reserved, religious 15-year-old girl who wants to become a priestess herself. After Greek soldiers capture and enslave Chryseis, the Greek high commander Agamemnon claims her as his “prize” and becomes sexually obsessed with her, regularly raping her. When Chryseis’s father attempts to ransom her, Agamemnon publicly claims that he likes Chryseis better than his own wife and that he’ll never let her go. After Agamemnon threatens Chryseis’ father and sends him away, a plague strikes the Greek camp. Because Apollo is the god of plague, the Greek soldiers assume that Apollo is punishing them for Agamemnon’s insult to his priest. Achilles publicly pressures Agamemnon to return Chryseis to her father—and Agamemnon does so, though he retaliates against Achilles by appropriating Achilles own enslaved woman, Briseis.
Chryseis Quotes in The Silence of the Girls
The The Silence of the Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Chryseis or refer to Chryseis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
Everybody in the arena was moved by the old man’s tears—and by the size of the ransom he’d brought with him. Sentiment and greed—the Greeks love a sentimental story almost as much as they love gold.
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Chapter 15
Quotes
“None of that gives him the right to take another man’s prize of honour. It doesn’t belong to him; he hasn’t earnt it.”
There was a lot more, but I’d stopped listening. Honour, courage, loyalty, reputation—all those big words being bandied about—but for me there was only one word, one very small word: it.
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Chryseis Quotes in The Silence of the Girls
The The Silence of the Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Chryseis or refer to Chryseis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
Everybody in the arena was moved by the old man’s tears—and by the size of the ransom he’d brought with him. Sentiment and greed—the Greeks love a sentimental story almost as much as they love gold.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15
Quotes
“None of that gives him the right to take another man’s prize of honour. It doesn’t belong to him; he hasn’t earnt it.”
There was a lot more, but I’d stopped listening. Honour, courage, loyalty, reputation—all those big words being bandied about—but for me there was only one word, one very small word: it.
