The Shield of Achilles

 The Shield of Achilles

W. H. Auden’s poem The Shield of Achilles is remarkable for its content, structure and beauty. Though the poem is based on Homer’s Iliad, the poet uses allusions only as a springboard for his own thoughts. It is not an interpretation of the myth or a new perspective. Whatever the poet has drawn from the epic is made to undergo a complete change to suit his purpose.

The poet names his characters only in the end, thereby suggesting that they are not as important as the situation. Thetis represents the mother of a modern day soldier. Her son Achilles represents the new generation which has degenerated an insensitive humanity which loves wars. The armor maker Hephaestos is still an artist who tells the truth as he always did.

In the beginning of the poem we see Thetis looking over Hephaestos’ shoulder with the hope of seeing the beautiful metal carving on the shield he is making. It is a shield for his son Achilles. But she fails to see what she is looking for. She expects to see the glories of a city but she sees only the spoils of a war. The armor maker, an artist, has put there only,

 An artificial wilderness

          And a sky like lead

It is just the opposite of what Homer talks about when he describes the shield of Achilles. No vines, no olive trees and no

Marble well-governed cities

And ships upon untamed seas,          

Around her, there reverberates the voice of authority, ‘in tones dry and level as the place’, using such a pure science as statistics to mislead the masses. She sees the soldiers, depressed and thoughtful, motivated by some false beliefs, marching towards the killing fields.

            She searches for images of ceremonies, rituals and customs. But the ones she sees are of a different nature. There are no priests around temples but sentries outside an army camp.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot

                      Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)

Instead of animal sacrifice, it is human sacrifice. Instead of pious rituals, it is a scene of insensitivity. Three people, gone pale with fear, are led out to be shot dead. The world around is ruled by a few. The majority live a shameful life,

And died as men before their bodies died.

            The mirth and merriment that Hephaestos had depicted on the shield of Achilles cannot be spotted on the shield of this modern day Achilles’ shield. All Thetis gets to see is,

                   A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,

loitering about in a weed-choked field, pelting stones at birds. His first lessons were about girls getting raped and boys knifing their friends. He has not heard about values or compassion.

               ‘Of any world where promises were kept,

                Or one could weep because another wept.

As the armorer finishes his work and walks away,

Thetis of the shining breasts

                     Cried out in dismay

She is horrified at what is in store for her son. He himself is an iron-hearted killer, whom wars may please and not sadden. His own death is imminent too. 

Thus we can easily see how the poets busts the myths associated with war. He is not only criticizing the modern day war, he is also making us doubt whether the wars in epics could have been different. Using the strands gleaned from the epic Iliad, Auden has managed to weave a magical mirror in which we shamefully witness our own world finding in war a solution not only for political problems but for economic problems too.