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Achilles
Patroclus is second-in-command and closest companion to Achilles. At age 10, Patroclus—who has a terrible temper—killed his best friend after the friend accused him of cheating at dice. Though a prince, Patroclus was exiled from his father’s court and sent to King Peleus’s court, where he met Achilles and became his inseparable friend, assuaging Achilles’s heartbreak at his goddess mother Thetis’s abandonment of her human family. Achilles, though also prone to outbursts, moderated Patroclus’ temper. When Achilles is 17 and Patroclus about 20, they go to fight in the Trojan War together. The novel implies that he and Achilles had a sexual relationship around that time, though it didn’t last due to Achilles’s ambivalence about sex. Patroclus often acts as a peacemaker among the touchy Greek warriors, who generally like him, though some Greek kings talk about him contemptuously due to his rumored sexual relationship with Achilles and his subordinate position to Achilles. Patroclus sympathizes with the Trojan women whom the Greek warriors enslave due to his own experience with exile. He befriends Achilles’s enslaved woman Briseis and offers to convince Achilles to marry her, thereby freeing her. Yet Patroclus deeply disagrees with Achilles’s decision to stop fighting yet remain at Troy after Agamemnon takes Briseis away. At King Nestor’s suggestion, Patroclus persuades Achilles to let him lead Achilles’s followers into battle wearing Achilles’ armor. Though Patroclus succeeds in pushing the Trojan warriors all the way back to Troy, he fights far longer than he promised Achilles he would, and eventually the Trojan prince Hector kills him. His death shatters Achilles, who returns to the fighting to revenge himself on Hector despite believing it will end in his own death. After Achilles dies in battle, his and Patroclus’s bones share a single urn.
Patroclus Quotes in The Silence of the Girls
The The Silence of the Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Patroclus or refer to Patroclus. 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 1
Quotes
I’d been kind to Ismene—or I thought I had, but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality? I looked across the room at Ismene and thought: Yes, you’re right. My turn now.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
“Because I know what it’s like to lose everything and be handed to Achilles as a toy.”
His honesty winded me. But at the same time I was thinking: How can you know? You, with all your privileges, all your power, how could you possibly know what it’s like to be me?
Chapter 19
Quotes
This isn’t about you.
Chapter 20
Quotes
It would have been easier, in many ways, to slip into thinking we were all in this together, equally imprisoned on this narrow strip of land between the sand dunes and the sea; easier, but false. They were men, and free. I was a woman, and a slave. And that’s a chasm no amount of sentimental chit-chat about shared imprisonment should be allowed to obscure.
Chapter 25
Quotes
“I might just get his knife in my guts.”
Nestor smiled. “Not you.”
“You’re sure about that, are you? I wish I was. But, then, I know what it’s like to kill a friend and spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
Chapter 31
Quotes
The defeated go down in history and disappear, and their stories die with them.
Chapter 34
Quotes
Some of the younger women had since had children by their Greek owners, and I’m sure they loved those children too—as women do—but when I spoke to them, it was the Trojan children they remembered, the boys who’d died fighting to save Troy.
Chapter 36
Quotes
He looked hollow, I thought. All that killing, all that revenge . . . Perhaps he’d managed to convince himself that if he did all that—killed Hector, defeated the Trojan army, broke Priam—Patroclus would keep his side of the bargain and stop being dead. We all try to make crazy deals with the gods, often without really knowing we’re doing it.
Chapter 38
Quotes
I’ve said Achilles awarded prizes—oh, and what prizes they were! Nothing was too much for him to give in memory of Patroclus: armour, tripods, horses, dogs, women . . . Iphis. He made her first prize in the chariot race.
Chapter 39
Quotes
He’s in control of everything he sees.
But every morning, he’s compelled to drive his chariot round and round Patroclus’ grave, to defile Hector’s body, and, in the process—as he understands perfectly well—to dishonour himself. And he has no idea how to make any of it stop.
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Chapter 43
Quotes
“You won’t do it.”
“He’s a guest.”
“Not invited.”
“No, but accepted.”
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47
Quotes
We need a new song.
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Patroclus Quotes in The Silence of the Girls
The The Silence of the Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Patroclus or refer to Patroclus. 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 1
Quotes
I’d been kind to Ismene—or I thought I had, but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality? I looked across the room at Ismene and thought: Yes, you’re right. My turn now.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
“Because I know what it’s like to lose everything and be handed to Achilles as a toy.”
His honesty winded me. But at the same time I was thinking: How can you know? You, with all your privileges, all your power, how could you possibly know what it’s like to be me?
Chapter 19
Quotes
This isn’t about you.
Chapter 20
Quotes
It would have been easier, in many ways, to slip into thinking we were all in this together, equally imprisoned on this narrow strip of land between the sand dunes and the sea; easier, but false. They were men, and free. I was a woman, and a slave. And that’s a chasm no amount of sentimental chit-chat about shared imprisonment should be allowed to obscure.
Chapter 25
Quotes
“I might just get his knife in my guts.”
Nestor smiled. “Not you.”
“You’re sure about that, are you? I wish I was. But, then, I know what it’s like to kill a friend and spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
Chapter 31
Quotes
The defeated go down in history and disappear, and their stories die with them.
Chapter 34
Quotes
Some of the younger women had since had children by their Greek owners, and I’m sure they loved those children too—as women do—but when I spoke to them, it was the Trojan children they remembered, the boys who’d died fighting to save Troy.
Chapter 36
Quotes
He looked hollow, I thought. All that killing, all that revenge . . . Perhaps he’d managed to convince himself that if he did all that—killed Hector, defeated the Trojan army, broke Priam—Patroclus would keep his side of the bargain and stop being dead. We all try to make crazy deals with the gods, often without really knowing we’re doing it.
Chapter 38
Quotes
I’ve said Achilles awarded prizes—oh, and what prizes they were! Nothing was too much for him to give in memory of Patroclus: armour, tripods, horses, dogs, women . . . Iphis. He made her first prize in the chariot race.
Chapter 39
Quotes
He’s in control of everything he sees.
But every morning, he’s compelled to drive his chariot round and round Patroclus’ grave, to defile Hector’s body, and, in the process—as he understands perfectly well—to dishonour himself. And he has no idea how to make any of it stop.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 43
Quotes
“You won’t do it.”
“He’s a guest.”
“Not invited.”
“No, but accepted.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47
Quotes
We need a new song.
