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The Lyre
Achille’s handmade ash spear represents his inhumanity, which will always be part of him due to his inevitable, violent destiny. But it also symbolizes the part of him that remains childlike and innocent. When Achilles decides to fight in the Trojan War, his mentor, Chiron, sends him the spear. The weapon is of course, intended to kill enemy soldiers. But Patroclus notes that Chiron made the spear with love, and indeed, the spear—designed specifically for Achilles’s hands and therefore an extension of his body—allows him to adopt and shed a murderous persona without fully embodying it. Patroclus also notices that the spear resembles a lyre’s strut, which is important because Achilles’s lyre is an ongoing symbol of innocence. So, the resemblance suggests that although Achilles has largely foregone his innocence in becoming a warrior, his former childhood innocence is still with him even as he commits inhumane actions on the battlefield.
Achilles’s contradictions, manifested by the spear, confuse others in the novel. At one point, Odysseus tells Patroclus that Achilles should embrace his destiny as a human weapon, because although “you can use a spear as a walking stick […] that will not change its nature.” In other words, Achilles is inherently violent, no matter how honorable he pretends to be. But because Achilles’s spear is distinct from him, Odysseus is both correct and incorrect: Achilles is capable of great violence, but he’s able to compartmentalize that inhumanity. He’s not a weapon, because his weapon of choice is only an extension of him. Patroclus believes that Chiron guessed Achilles’s destiny early on and was bitter about its unavoidability. Thus, it’s likely that the spear was both a gift and a way out, since it allowed Achilles to subvert the gods’ worst intentions by remaining—at least partially—himself.
Achilles’s Spear Quotes in The Song of Achilles
The The Song of Achilles quotes below all refer to the symbol of Achilles’s Spear. 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:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
His movements were so precise I could almost see the men he fought, ten, twenty of them, advancing on all sides. He leapt, scything his spear, even as his other hand snatched the sword from its sheath. He swung out with them both, moving like liquid, like a fish through the waves.
He stopped, suddenly. I could hear his breaths, only a little louder than usual, in the still afternoon air.
"Who trained you?" I asked. I did not know what else to say.
"My father, a little."
A little. I felt almost frightened. "No one else?"
"No."
I stepped forward. "Fight me."
He made a sound almost like a laugh. “No. Of course not."
"Fight me." I felt in a trance. He had been trained, a little, by his father. The rest was—what? Divine? This was more of the gods than I had ever seen in my life.
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Chapter 16
Quotes
Finally, last of all: a long spear, ash sapling peeled of bark and polished until it glowed like gray flame. From Chiron, Peleus said, handing it to his son. We bent over it, our fingers trailing its surface as if to catch the centaur's lingering presence. Such a fine gift would have taken weeks of Chiron's deft shaping; he must have begun it almost the day that we left. Did he know, or only guess at Achilles' destiny? As he lay alone in his rose-colored cave, had some glimmer of prophecy come to him? Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.
Yet this beautiful spear had been fashioned not in bitterness, but love. Its shape would fit no one's hand but Achilles', and its heft could suit no one's strength but his. And though the point was keen and deadly, the wood itself slipped under our fingers like the slender oiled strut of a lyre.
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Chapter 18
Quotes
He leaned forward in his chair. “May I give you some advice? If you are truly his friend, you will help him leave this soft heart behind. He's going to Troy to kill men, not rescue them.” His dark eyes held me like swift-running current. “He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
The words drove breath from me, left me stuttering. “He is not—”
“But he is. The best the gods have ever made. And it is time he knew it, and you did too. If you hear nothing else I say, hear that. I do not say it in malice.”
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Chapter 31
Quotes
He lifts his ashen spear.
No, I beg him. It is his own death he holds, his own blood that he will spill.
[…]
Hector's eyes are wide, but he will run no longer. He says, “Grant me this. Give my body to my family, when you have killed me.”
Achilles makes a sound like choking. “There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
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Achilles’s Spear Symbol Timeline in The Song of Achilles
The timeline below shows where the symbol Achilles’s Spear appears in The Song of Achilles. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 16
...Automedon, a boy even younger than Achilles and Patroclus. He also gives Achilles an ash spear—it was a gift from Chiron. It would have taken Chiron weeks to sculpt, and Patroclus...
(full context)
Chapter 19
...didn’t have to; Achilles did. Achilles’s sadness lifts after that, but he starts carrying his spear everywhere, practicing.
(full context)
Chapter 20
...either kill and win or kill and die. Even Chiron, Patroclus reflects, gave Achilles a spear. As Achilles greets his men, he seems so heroic that Patroclus almost forgets that Achilles...
(full context)
...he apologizes and asks Achilles to continue describing the raid. Achilles tells Patroclus how his spear pierced someone’s cheek. Patroclus imagines that these words are a story rather than relating facts....
(full context)
Chapter 31
...make a bargain with Hector; instead, he says that he’ll “eat [him] raw.” Achille’s ash spear strikes Hector’s throat. Covered in blood, Achilles drags Hector’s body back to the Greek camp,...
(full context)
