The Women Of Troy Quotes
"He’d learnt to ride on Rufus; nearly everybody did, because Rufus was a quite exceptionally steady horse."
"God, he’d loved that horse—more than his mother, more even than his nurse."
"Each man shifts from side to side, trying to ease his shoulders into a little more space, all intertwined and wriggling like worms in a horse’s shite."
"He groans in despair, 'Achilles! Father!' And, incredibly, Priam turns to him and smiles again."
"No burial for Priam, he decides. No honour, no funeral rites, no dignity in death."
"He tries to pray, but no god hears, and so he shuts his eyes and thinks: Father."
"The noise filled my head till I thought it was going to split open."
"The Greek fighters listen and wait. Pyrrhus tries to find room to stretch his legs; he has cramp in his right calf."
"He’s not a coward, he really isn’t, he got into this bloody horse prepared to die."
"The only thing, the only thing, that mattered in this camp was power—and that meant, ultimately, the power to kill."
"A young wife who makes herself miserable over her husband’s concubines is a fool."
"Hector always treated his wife with great respect on the rare occasions when they were obliged to appear together in public."
"I remember one evening in particular when Helen had been complimenting the Trojans on how strictly they chaperoned unmarried girls."
"In spite of everything, I’ve never been able to hate Helen—which, as far as Trojan women go, puts me in a minority of precisely one."
"No, the real problem was Helen. Hector was dazzled by her."
"She was like a frail, gaunt old bird—a storm thrush, perhaps—feathers ruffled by the blast, but still singing, still shouting defiance from its perch."
"Agamemnon never leaves his hall; he hasn’t been seen outside since the wind changed and pinned the Greek ships to the beach."
"I thought about Priam a great deal over the next few days. Seeing his ring round Andromache’s neck brought everything back."
"The sea swallowed him; the sea’s spewed him back, that’s all."
"I knew they looked up to me, they trusted me—simply because I’d survived in this nightmarish place to which the loss of their homes and families had brought them."
"Whenever I look at my mother, I see hairs growing out of her heart."
"You see why I turn a blind eye when she sneaks that brother of hers in? What else has she got?"
"One quick look, I told myself, and then I’d go back home."
"People are made differently, Briseis. Andromache can bear that. I don’t think I could."
"I understood the pressures Alcimus was under much better now."
"She didn’t want to save me; she wanted them to believe she’d acted alone."
"I closed my eyes, and gradually, I felt a presence growing in the darkness behind me."
"That night, cooped up inside the horse, he’d told himself that things had got to change—and change they had."
"Taking a torch from a sconce on the wall, he enters the porch and kicks the inner door open."
"Above that, creaking and swaying in the draught, are two huge airing racks where damp shirts are put to dry."
"The room’s no longer a squalid, stinking hole...it’s a palace, a royal bedroom decorated for a wedding night."
"This really doesn’t need to be a problem. If I tell the guards not to mention it to anybody they won’t, simple as that."
"He stares round the room at the candles that have gone on burning and are still burning, as if nothing’s happened."
"And he’d seen them then, of course—and it’s not as if he’d forgotten they were there, he’s always known they were."
"I think perhaps we’re all wondering what we’ve done to offend the gods..."
"Do you really believe souls wander about for all eternity just because they can’t pay some fucking ferryman who doesn’t exist anyway?"
"Her hands are behind her, scrabbling for something on the slab—he doesn’t see the knife, feels it though, sending a jolt of agony from his shoulder down his arm."
"It would have been better to have died in Troy," Agamemnon says, "than live the way I live now. Priam sleeps better than I do."
"He sees her glance from side to side, as unsettled by the swinging shadows as he is himself."
"He was full of praise. He said Achilles walked beside the cart and saw him safely out of the camp."
"She’s dead. Is she dead? Still twitching, but no, she’s dead."
"I think what matters is, what do we do now? How do we live now?"
"I’ve got to get a grip on my thoughts. What does it matter what slaves think, or say?"
"You’re not trying," Andromache said. "You’ve got to push!"
"What sort of man gazes deep into his wife’s eyes and tells her she’s the second-most-beautiful woman in the world?"
"You mightn’t always like what he said, but you could be fairly certain it was the truth as he saw it."
"Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles… We lived our lives in that vast shadow."
"We women are peculiar creatures. We tend not to love those who murder our families."
"Some of the ties that bind people together are deeper than love."
"You might as well have tried to hold back the tide."
"But it’s in the nature of the gods that punishment often precedes knowledge of the offence."
"I suppose I’ve got to accept it. They were guest-friends."
"Killing Andromache’s baby—that had been done in the immediate aftermath of battle, and under direct orders from Agamemnon."
"I’m not saying the neglect of their statues has so incensed the gods that they’ve sent this wind as a punishment."
"I don’t have to listen to you. Oh, but you do listen, don’t you? And you always will."
"Seeing crowds of people gathered on the headland, Ebony might think it’s the start of another race?"
"Our fathers were guest-friends. That means we are too."