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Author’s Statement:
This is some more research-based fanfiction. Sorry. I chose to depict my own take on Achilles in the Achilleid while he’s with the women on Scyros. It was too interesting not to, and the more I read both the Achilleid and the articles I found, the more intriguing the play with gender and sexuality got. Achilles was dressed as and was acting as a girl, but Statius made sure to continuously mention just how manly he still was—I skimmed half of the text and found 7 mentions of typically masculine features attributed to Achilles almost immediately.
My goal with writing this was to poise it as more of a coming-of-age-boys-first-crush sort of thing. It’s more of a mutual fascination that turns into a sort of puppy-love rather than a man chasing a girl. Which is admittedly a much more lighthearted version than the actual writing, which has Achilles assaulting Deidamia, from which Neoptolemus is born. Since Achilles is just on the cusp of puberty, demonstrated through his lack of facial hair (which I touch on in the footnotes), I went with something softer. I also decided to make Achilles like it all and not find it to be beneath him to do ‘womanly’ things, since by all accounts what is described (dancing, weaving, etc.) are all decently lovely things.
The loose clothes that drape over Achilles are soft. He doesn’t know what he expected when he arrived at Scyros, aside from joining a group of women disguised as one of them, but it wasn’t that the clothes would be so soft.[1]
He should have asked Thetis more questions. He’d almost asked for more time, to study and learn how to better assimilate. But he’s not sure how helpful she would have been.[2] She’d given him plenty of reason, and when he’d been hesitant, she’d given more, recalling heroes and gods alike.[3]
It’s easy enough, he thinks. He doesn’t have any hair on his face, and his skin is soft and smooth enough.[4] The walking and talking were a little bit harder, as was the potential explanation for being shaped so differently if any of the girls had enough courage to ask. It’s all down to lineage, he’d become prepared to say, I got my father’s frame.
Deidamia is nice. She’s smart, and pretty, and makes his chest flutter. It’s exciting, being so close to women, in a way he hadn’t been able to be on account of growing up in a cave with a centaur. Not that he minded—Achilles missed Chiron and the cave, actually.[5] The security it all gave him.
But this is nice. Frolicking, lazing around and gossiping. The girls can’t help but marvel at him, at his athleticism. He’s lean where they are not and is sharp edges where they are soft curves.[6]
Deidamia’s gaze is the only one that matters to him, though.
He wants to tell her, reveal his secret, but he can’t. His mother warned him that the world wasn’t safe for him right now, and that it was better for him to don these clothes and hide. He feels a little pathetic, being whisked away as Achilles’ sister and finding refuge amongst girls. All is going to be well; he assures himself every night.
And so, he dances, and gossips, and flounces around amongst the flock.[7] He doesn’t tell admit to himself how much he likes it. Sure, the touches are exhilarating, but so is the companionship, the laughing, the heartfelt conversations. And the soft clothes.
He follows Deidamia around like a duckling follows its mother. Whatever she does, he does, clumsily going through the motions of something that should come easily to a woman. Teasing out wool with his fingers just scratches his skin. Deidamia is patient, though, walking him through the steps time and time again with nothing less than a teasing grin.
Goodness, he could love her. He chases after her with all of the grace of a teenage boy, which is to say none at all, stumbling over his feet just to make her smile again, making a fool out of himself to hear her laugh.
Achilles tries not to think about what it looks like from the outside—a girl chasing after another girl. He doesn’t care, anyhow. She’s kind, and patient, and he… wants. He wants in a way that is unfamiliar to him, not like anything he’s experienced before.[8] For the first time, it’s him that’s doing the chasing and he’s so far out of his depth it’s ridiculous.[9]
He takes her by the hand, the touch electrifying, and they run, feel the wind in their hair and against their skin. He thinks about pressing a kiss against her cheek, but doesn’t. Just smiles, flushes when she smiles back, and they both tip their heads back in laughter. She says, “you really are something special, wonderful sister of Achilles,” and something in his chest hurts a little.
He wants to be truthful, but he’d made his mother a promise. A promise that is, for all intents and purposes, for his own sake.
Sometimes, he thinks she must know.[10] He’ll catch her looking sometimes, curiously scanning him up and down. He’ll blush something fierce and warm, twisting his body to cover up more in a faux scandalized movement. But he likes her eyes on him.
This is enough, though. It’s enough because it has to be, because this pretending can’t be forever. And surely, when the truth comes out, Deidamia will not continue their friendship. Not just because he is a man and she is a woman, and there is no such thing as a friendship between men and women, more than that, because he lied. He lied and deceived, and he thinks she ought to be smart enough and self-respecting enough to have no relationship with a liar.
He enjoys everything while he can, the stolen glances and brush of fingertips on skin. They talk late into the night again and again and when bathed in the moonlight she looks ethereal.
They sit and they stare at the moon and their legs skim each other, the thin dresses not enough to conceal the warmth of their body heat. It makes Achilles shiver and press a little closer.
He decides he must tell her—she has to know. She should know.
I think I love you, he says, except it comes out as, “I think you’re prettier than I’ll ever be.”
She laughs. Deidamia’s so, so pretty when she laughs. She leans back on her hands, puts her face to the sky and closes her eyes. I love you too, she says back, but it’s, “you’re prettier than you know.”
Bibliography
Heslin, P. J. “Womanhood, Rhetoric, and Performance.” In The Transvestite Achilles, 105–56, 2005.
McAuley, M. “Ambiguus Sexus : Epic Masculinity in Transition in Statius’ Achilleid.” Akroterion 55, no. 1 (2010): 37–60.
Russell, Craig M. “THE MOST UNKINDEST CUT: GENDER, GENRE, AND CASTRATION IN STATIUS’ ‘ACHILLEID’ AND ‘SILVAE’ 3.4.” American Journal of Philology 135, no. 1 (2014): 87–121
[1] The impression of Achilles that Statius presents during the Scyros episode is not of a wrathful and aggressive warrior who always comes out victorious on the battlefield, but instead a submissive boy in drag who is entrenched in a harem full of dancing and amor (McAuley, “Ambiguus Sexus: Epic Masculinity in Transition in Statius’ Achilleid,” 2010, p. 38).
[2] Both Thetis and Achilles have difficulty adhering to the rules of womanhood. Statius depicts Thetis as being overreaching with her powers, and in doing so becomes a figure of comedic ineptitude. She repeatedly misuses language and rhetorical tropes—this can be read as Thetis trying to usurp behaviour and authority that is inappropriate for women (Heslin, “Womanhood, Rhetoric, and Performance,” 2005, p. 105).
[3] In lines 294-311, Thetis invokes images of Hercules, Bacchus, Jupiter, and Caenus to try and convince Achilles to cross dress. I find the inclusion of Caenus odd, as he was turned from a woman into a man, but of course I am not Statius.
[4] Achil 1.180-190 mentions that Achilles had not yet turned the leaf into manhood by growing facial hair. He was “still sweet to look at.” This would lend well to him disguising as a woman, since it was probably at least uncommon for women to have pronounced facial hair.
[5] In the Achilleid, Thetis did not raise her son—Chiron did.
[6] A preliminary skim of the text from when Achilles is with the women on Scyros brought me 7 mentions of traditionally masculine terms used to describe him. Line 415, he’s described as a full head taller than any of the women; 416 ‘she’ holds her chest and shoulders solidly; 630 he’s ‘sturdy Achilles,’; 651 he has rough hands that ruin; 652 he has a deep voice and strong grip; 682 he’s described as having a ‘columnar neck,’; and line 685 he has a ‘momentous hand.’ It seems Statius loved reminding the audience that he was still a man underneath his ‘girlish’ actions and disguise.
[7] I use these words more than once sort of as a comment on what Achilles probably thought women do all day, as a man. All this pretending is kind of like a game to him—how long can he go undetected? Sure, his safety is on the line, but I’m trying to go for a more lighthearted version of the story. Also, the girls are referred to as a flock of birds in Achil. 1.419-26.
[8] Achilles’ transition into manhood is prolonged by his time spent disguised on Scyros. He is on the edge between being a child and a young man. (Russell, “The Most Unkindest Cut: Gender, Genre, and Castration in Statius’ ‘Achilleid’ and ‘Silvae’,” 2014, p. 94).
[9] The emphasis on a boy's transition from childhood to puberty primarily centers on his emerging sexuality, as he gains the potential to actively participate in sexual encounters, whereas previously, he could only take on a passive role (i.e., be the penetrator rather than the penetrated, as is the way with the younger men involved with pederasty—a relationship that could be argued happened between Patroclus and Achilles). (Russell, “The Most Unkindest Cut,” 2014, p. 99).
[10] She does. Achil. 1.625-27 reveals that she knows that he is a man.