A decisão de Aquiles: Intensidade dramática e narrativa na Patrocléia (Ilíada XVI)

Abstract

The article discusses how in the sixteenth book of the Iliad (known as Patrocleia) the poet creates dramatic intensity using key elements of the narrative, giving special relevance to the episode, which is the main changing point in the plot of the poem. The increasing savagery in this book brings up both the issue of irascibility in front of a long and exhausting war, that had led to the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, as the prospect of the tragic deaths of Hector and Achilles, central to the building of the plot. In a continuous growing, the narrative explores the drama of the Achilles’ decision to return or not to the battlefield, giving the size of the risks it must take in each of the possibilities. Driven by passion, Patroclus and Achilles discuss and deliberate a partial solution – the use of armor for Achilles Patroclus – which could save the Achaeans without undoing the Achilles promise not to intervene until the ships were set on fire. The tragic fates of Achilles and Patroclus shows itself at this irreversible: their decisions are the result of the limited perspective of their own destiny, essential characteristic of the human condition, and lead them along with divine interventions and plans, to the glorious but suffering deaths that were reserved for them.