Characters
- Artemis — immortal horse; speaks
- Balius — immortal yoke-mate
- Erinyes — halt the unnatural voice
- Lyssa — grants the horse speech
- Patroclus — remembered dead
- Trojan assembly — master; hears his own doom
- Zephyrus — parents of the immortal pair (pedigree)
Places
- Assembly — where the horses will run
- Trojan shore — arming-place before the chariot
Themes
Narrative
Achilles’ chariot-team includes the immortal horses Xanthus and Balius—wind-swift offspring of Podarge the Harpy by the West Wind—and the mortal trace-horse Pedasus (slain earlier with Patroclus). When Achilles arms for vengeance and chides the horses for leaving Patroclus dead, Hera grants Xanthus human speech. The horse answers that they will keep him safe this day, but his death draws near by god and man; it was Apollo and Hector, not the horses’ slackness, who destroyed Patroclus. The Erinyes then stop the voice.
The moment binds Achilles’ fate to the animals that have served him: prophecy from the yoke, not from a seer. Catalogue it apart from the general return to battle.