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This Year’s Cover: Achilles and War

For this year’s cover of the International Journal, we continue with the theme of portrayals from Greek myth on vases, this time showing Achilles binding the wounds of Patroclus. At this time of extreme violence in various wars, old and new, it’s as though the terrible figure of Achilles is reborn in our times. Homer’s Iliad is replete with descriptions of his remorseless violence: one is staggered by the sheer numbers of those whom he slays, often with cool precision, emotionally detached as he delivers death and misery. Yet this same killing machine has his moments of care and love, particularly as he tends his friend Patroclus: our cover shows him binding Patroclus’ wounds with evident loving attention and concern.

But this softness evaporates when his hatred is inflamed, and the entire story of the Trojan War crescendos to the point where, in response to Hector’s killing of Patroclus, Achilles fights Hector in a state of incandescent rage, not only killing him but mutilating his body and pouring insult upon insult upon Hector’s family and people through the intensity of his cruelty.

Finally, Troy itself is destroyed and sacked, its people ruined through rape and pillage. Once again, one is astonished by the capacity of the ancient Greeks to reflect so truthfully both the love and the hatred in human nature. When so many are tortured and killed in our day, this particular moment of men engaging in love and healing rather than in horrible destruction seems important to remember, to bear at the front of our minds, and of course to hope that this current of love can somehow become stronger than the alternating current of hatred.

Editorial

Letter From Florence

European Psychoanalytic Federation – 37th Conference – Florence, Italy, 22–24 March 2023
Benedetta Guerrini Degl’Innocenti and Chiara Matteini

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