In his tent, Achilles grieved with his whole being and the gods saw he was a man already dead, a victim of the part that loved, the part that was mortal.

When they saw Patroklos dead — so brave and strong, so young — the horses of Achilles began to weep; their immortal nature was upset deeply by this work of death they had to look at.

Growing to full manhood now,
With the care-lines on our brow,
We, the youngest of the nations, With no childish lamentations,
Weep, as only strong men weep,
For the noble hearts that sleep, Pillowed where they fought and bled,
The loved and lost, our glorious dead.

When I remember again How my Philip was slain, Never half the pain Was between you twain, Pyramus and Thisbe, As then befell to me. I wept and I wailed, The tearės down hailed, But nothing it availed To call Philip again Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.

Men looked so tragic when they cried.

"Weep," said Athos, "weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!"

The majestic king of Troy slipped past the rest
and kneeling down beside Achilles, clasped his knees
and kissed his hands, those terrible, man-killing hands
that had slaughtered Priam's many sons in battle.

He went out . . . and wept bitterly.

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.

The Triumph Of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted — their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.

Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chairs, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor - just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe; for, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man; and, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!

That night when he went back to his hotel, he wept for his dead children and all the other castrated boys, for his own lost youth, for those who were young no longer and those who died young, for those who fought for Salvador Allende and those who were too scared to fight.

Now though the blow that snatcht him hence,
Stopt the Mouth of Eloquence,
Though she be dumb e'r since his Death,
Not us'd to speak but in his Breath;
Yet if at least she not denies,
The sad Language of our Eyes,
We are contented: for then this
Language none more fluent is.
Nothing speaks our Grief so well
As to speak nothing: Come then tell
Thy mind in Tears who e'r thou be,
That ow'st a Name to Misery:
Eyes are Vocal, Tears have Tongues,
And there be words not made with Lungs;
Sententious showers, O let them fall,
Their cadence is Rhetorical.
Here's a Theme will drink th' expence
Of all thy watry Eloquence;
Weep then, onely be exprest
Thus much, He's Dead, and Weep the rest.