24.299–338

Now, finally, the chariot and wagon go out of the gates, trailed by mourning family and citizens:

                          φίλοι δ᾽ ἅμα πάντες ἕποντο
πόλλ᾽ ὀλοφυρόμενοι ὡς εἰ θάνατον δὲ κιόντα.
οἳ δ᾽ ἐπεὶ οὖν πόλιος κατέβαν, πεδίον δ᾽ ἀφίκοντο,
οἳ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἄψορροι προτὶ Ἴλιον ἀπονέοντο
παῖδες καὶ γαμβροί, τὼ δ᾽ οὐ λάθον εὐρύοπα Ζῆν
ἐς πεδίον προφανέντε: ἰδὼν δ᾽ ἐλέησε γέροντα,
αἶψα δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἑρμείαν υἱὸν φίλον ἀντίον ηὔδα:
“Ἑρμεία, σοὶ γάρ τε μάλιστά γε φίλτατόν ἐστιν
ἀνδρὶ ἑταιρίσσαι, καί τ᾽ ἔκλυες ᾧ κ᾽ ἐθέλῃσθα,
βάσκ᾽ ἴθι καὶ Πρίαμον κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
ὣς ἄγαγ᾽, ὡς μήτ᾽ ἄρ τις ἴδῃ μήτ᾽ ἄρ τε νοήσῃ
τῶν ἄλλων Δαναῶν, πρὶν Πηλεΐωνα δ᾽ ἱκέσθαι.

                          All his kinsman were following him,
with much wailing, as if he were going to his death.
And when the two men had gone through the city
and come out on the plain, the others went back toward Ilion,
his sons and sons-in-law. But the two men did not escape Zeus’s notice
as they appeared on the plain. Seeing the old man, the god pitied him,
and quickly summoned his dear son Hermes:
“Hermes, since it is dearest to you to escort mortals,
and you listen to whomever you wish to,
go quickly toward the curved ships of the Achaeans,
and so lead him, that no other of all the other Danaans
might see him or recognize him, before he comes to the son of Peleus.

Iliad 24.327–38

The phrase, ὡς εἰ θάνατον δὲ κιόντα, might not jump out at us, given the man Priam is going to see, and we remember the old king’s words just earlier:

                                                      αὐτὰρ ἔγωγε
πρὶν ἀλαπαζομένην τε πόλιν κεραϊζομένην τε
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδεῖν βαίην δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω.

                                                     But I would
sooner go down to the house of Hades than
see with my own eyes the city sacked and plundered.

Iliad 24.244–46

Priam’s mission is dangerous in any event, but the poet seems to hint that we keep another mythical paradigm in mind as the old king sets out. Under the cover of darkness, the men will cross a river and pass by a tomb, led by Hermes, guide of souls to the Underworld. They are about to reenact the definitive heroic adventure.

The katabasis (“journey downward”) represents the “WDR” pattern in its most elemental form. To look death in the face and return to tell about it is the ultimate proof of the hero’s extraordinary stature. The journey may be physical, as it is for Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Orpheus, and Aeneas, or internal and spiritual, or both. The last of Achilles’ three withdrawals falls into this latter category, as he descends by the beginning of Book 24 into a personal hell of his own making. No matter what form the pattern takes, some elements persist. Going to the land of the dead brings the hero face-to-face with some fundamental truth, about himself and/or the larger cosmos, which he can take back to the world above. The encounter with death implies an annihilation, a reduction to nothing, out of which can rise new awareness, if the hero can absorb it. Both Gilgamesh and Achilles are able to accept their mortality and the limits it enforces, while Orpheus realizes the limits of his ability to control Eurydice, no matter how much he loves her. Through his encounters with dead heroes, Odysseus learns about his own unique powers. The Aeneid offers a poignant example of the pattern, as Aeneas travels to the Underworld to consult his father, who tells him his future, which will be to father the beginning of a line of kings that will eventually found Rome. Aeneas himself, however, will drink the waters of forgetfulness and ascend as a new soul with no memory of who he is or what he has done (Virg. Aen. 6.713–51)

This present version of the WDR pattern would seem to have a more limited scope than the tripartite iteration that supplies the structural backbone for the entire Achilles plot, itself the engine that drives the poem. How much this figurative katabasis ought to influence our response to the poem’s last scenes is open to debate. What seems certain is that the poet meant the paradigm to be present on some level, given the poet’s hints about Priam “going to his death,” and the role of Hermes. If so, what are the implications for our understanding of the characters and their interactions as the story draws to a close?

Seen through the lens of the katabasis myth, Priam becomes the hero, awake while others sleep, traveling to the Underworld to bring back a loved one. Achilles, in turn, becomes the death god who must be placated, a more troubling role. Doomed to an early death, he is in this paradigm already resident in the land of the dead. The brutal avenger of Books 21 and 22, rejecting any participation in the human race, battling with the river god, becomes a more serene, detached figure, a mythical deity who treats Priam with respect despite his earlier rage. He is transcendent, but in a more positive way. What this means for the mortal Achilles and any “return” he may achieve, as part of the process of grieving or the larger WDR pattern is much less clear.

Further Reading

Van Nortwick, T. 1992. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero’s Journey in Ancient Epic, 28–32; 79. New York: Oxford University Press.

———2009. The Unknown Odysseus, 57–58. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Pres.

Whitman, C. 1958. Homer and The Heroic Tradition, 217–218. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.