Previous
Symbols
The lyre represents innocence, which Achilles and Patroclus must eventually cast aside. When Patroclus is exiled from his kingdom to Phthia, his father sends a lyre as payment, which the young prince Achilles takes. This particular lyre belonged to Patroclus’s mother and was part of her dowry; she was intellectually disabled and would often listen to visiting bards play the instrument, not understanding the sounds but appreciating their beauty instinctually. When Achilles, a skilled musician, first encounters the lyre, he’s similarly innocent. But Patroclus isn’t: he’s already killed a young boy, which is what led to his exile. The lyre’s change of ownership makes sense, then: Achilles’s innocence and carefree nature is what allows him to take pleasure in playing the instrument. Patroclus describes Achilles’s use of the lyre as “pure,” which might be the only pure thing about him, as he’s eventually destined to be Greece’s best warrior. But he’s still childlike when he plays the lyre, and that bloody future seems a long way off.
When Achilles leaves to train with Chiron, Patroclus secretly follows him—but he hesitates before doing so, solely because running away would mean leaving the lyre. His decision to go anyway suggests that he’s willing to abandon the instrument—and the comfort of childlike innocence that it represents—if it means staying with Achilles. Achilles, however, took the lyre when he left, and he jokes that he now knows how to make Patroclus follow him anywhere: all he has to do is hold onto the lyre. But when Achilles leaves for Scyros, he leaves the lyre in Phthia, and he later says that he wishes they had it. Before Achilles and Patroclus leave for Troy, Achilles receives an ash spear that Chiron fashioned for him. Patroclus notes that it resembles a lyre, though the two objects are, of course, vastly different. The resemblance suggests that Achilles’s innocence has transformed into something much darker—he will, after all, use the spear to kill enemy soldiers in the Trojan War. Furthermore, it confirms that Patroclus never followed him for his innocence. Patroclus understands that Achilles will change, and he accepts it—and this acceptance is, perhaps, the clearest loss of innocence for them both.
The Lyre Quotes in The Song of Achilles
The The Song of Achilles quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Lyre. 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 4
Quotes
It was my mother's lyre, the one my father had sent as part of my price.
Achilles plucked a string. The note rose warm and resonant, sweetly pure. My mother had always pulled her chair close to the bards when they came, so close my father would scowl and the servants would whisper. I remembered, suddenly, the dark gleam of her eyes in the firelight as she watched the bard's hands. The look on her face was like thirst.
[…]
His fingers touched the strings, and all my thoughts were displaced. The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons. It was like no music I had ever heard before. It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Song of Achilles LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Lyre Symbol Timeline in The Song of Achilles
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Lyre appears in The Song of Achilles. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...Phthia with no belongings of his own, only gifts for the royal family—including his mother’s lyre, which was once part of her dowry. When Patroclus arrives, Peleus is gone, so his...
(full context)
Chapter 4
Patroclus accompanies Achilles to his lyre lesson. While Patroclus doesn’t know how to play (because his father hated music), he picks...
(full context)
Chapter 5
Eventually, Patroclus tells Achilles little bits about his life back home, including that the lyre used to belong to his mother. Achilles says that he’s glad that Patroclus’s father sent...
(full context)
Chapter 6
...boys assume, Achilles’s days are pretty open; he doesn’t train constantly. He mostly plays the lyre and does occasional drills. The two talk, play, and swim, and Patroclus realizes that he...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...he has no belongings, nothing to pack. His only regret would be leaving his mother’s lyre, but there’s no time to go get it, so he sprints away from the palace....
(full context)
Chapter 9
...work, but Chiron, smiling, says it doesn’t. Later, the two listen to Achilles playing the lyre. It’s the same lyre that belonged to Patroclus’s mother. On his first day on Pelion,...
(full context)
Chapter 10
...that figs grow on Pelion. Patroclus also carves a small sculpture, featuring Achilles playing the lyre. The two then eagerly eat the figs, while Achilles opens his present from Peleus: a...
(full context)
...night not long after, the three sit by the fire outside with Achilles playing the lyre. Asking if Chiron is tired, Achilles excuses himself and Patroclus, and they go to the...
(full context)
Chapter 14
...Achilles watch the sea for ships; Achilles remarks that he wishes he had Patroclus’s mother’s lyre, which they left in Phthia. Suddenly, they see a smudge on the horizon: an unfamiliar...
(full context)
Chapter 16
...else. The point is sharp and deadly, but the wood itself is slippery, like a lyre.
(full context)
Chapter 33
...what things, and Patroclus tells her, newly unafraid: returning Hector’s body to Priam, playing the lyre, claiming the Trojan women. Thetis interjects, saying that was Patroclus, not Achilles. He responds to...
(full context)
