The Song Of Achilles Book Pdf -
Madeline Miller
MY FATHER WAS A KING AND THE SON OF KINGS. HE was a short man, as most of us
were, and built like a bull, all shoulders. He married my mother when she was
fourteen and sworn by the priestess to be fruitful. It was a good match: she was
an only child, and her father’s fortune would go to her husband.
He did not find out until the wedding that she was simple.
Her father had been
scrupulous about keeping her veiled until the ceremony, and my father had
humored him. If she was ugly, there were always slave girls and serving boys.
When at last they pulled off the veil, they say my mother smiled. That is how
they knew she was quite stupid. Brides did not smile.
When I was delivered, a boy, he plucked me from her arms and handed me to
a nurse. In pity, the midwife gave my mother a pillow to hold instead of me. My
mother hugged it.
She did not seem to notice a change had been made.
Quickly, I became a disappointment: small, slight. I was not fast. I was not
strong. I could not sing. The best that could be said of me was that I was not
sickly. The colds and cramps that seized my peers left me untouched. This only
made my father suspicious. Was I a changeling, inhuman? He scowled at me,
watching. My hand shook, feeling his gaze. And there was my mother, dribbling
wine on herself.
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