Hello and welcome to Queer's Fiction where we discuss queer historical media.

My name is Eli.

I'm Alice.

I'm Jason.

And today we're talking about modern depictions of Achilles and Patrickless.

We have some content warnings before we start this episode.

We'll be discussing war and war-related death, grief, violence and PTSD, as depicted in the media

that we're discussing.

We're also going to be discussing sexual slavery, both in a war context and not, and the way

that those relationships are romanticised in media.

Somewhat on that note, we will also be discussing modern homophobia and misogyny.

If any of that sounds like something that you don't want to listen to, please for free to skip this one and listen to any of our other episodes.

A couple of episodes ago, we discussed the mythological figures Achilles and Patriclus and their depiction in ancient texts,

most notably in Homer's Iliad. I don't want to recap that

episode too thoroughly, so if that sounds interesting to you, I suggest you just go and listen to that

episode. But I will say a few things as necessary background. Achilles and Patroclus are heroes of

the Trojan War, a brief episode of which is depicted in the Iliad. Although there is genuinely some

ambiguity as to the exact nature of their relationship in the Iliad. Although there is genuinely some ambiguity as to the

exact nature of their relationship in the Iliad, their relationship is very intense and very

important to the plot, character arcs and emotional heart of that poem. What is not ambiguous is how

their relationship is understood in the later Greek text we discussed. So we discussed Eastgloss's

play the Mermedoms, which survives only in fragments,

...