Grief-stricken to find his lover gone, Patroclus extracts Achilles’s location from Peleus and travels to Scyros. Still determined to end her son’s association with Patroclus, Thetis weds Achilles to Lycomedes’s daughter Deidameia, and she becomes pregnant. There, Achilles hides, disguised as a woman. She spirits him away to the kingdom of Lycomedes on the island of Scyros.

However, Thetis is aware of a prophecy that states Achilles will die if he goes to Troy. Peleus hopes that Achilles will lead the Phthian delegation. His brother Menelaus’s wife Helen has been abducted by Trojan prince Paris, and Agamemnon plans to lead an expedition to Troy to recover her. When Achilles is 16, Peleus sends for him and reveals that Mycenaean king Agamemnon has asked for military support from the disparate kingdoms of the Greek-speaking world. Patroclus follows Achilles, and the boys spend two happy years together studying with Chiron. She whisks Achilles away to train with the centaur Chiron, famed for having trained Heracles and other Greek heroes. She believes that a mortal of such little renown is not a suitable companion for her son, who is fated for glory. However, Thetis does not approve of their relationship. The two become inseparable, and their friendship turns to romance as they grow into adolescence.

Achilles is drawn to Patroclus and requests him for a companion. His exile brings him to Phthia, where he meets Achilles, son of King Peleus and Thetis, a nymph. While Patroclus’s suit is inevitably rejected, he is obliged to take a blood oath pledging to protect Helen’s marriage.Īt the age of 10, Patroclus is exiled for accidentally killing a nobleman’s son. Menoitius brings 9-year-old Patroclus to the court of Tyndareus as a suitor for his daughter Helen’s hand in marriage. Son of King Menoitius, the undersized and bullied Patroclus is a disappointment to his father.

The novel begins with Patroclus narrating his birth and early childhood.

The song of achilles