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In the song "Something Just Like This," by Coldplay and the Chainsmokers, there's a line that says:
I've been reading books of old
The legends and the myths.
Achilles and his gold,
Hercules and his gifts.
I recall Achilles being associated with martial prowess and his famous heel, not gold. What does the song refer to?
One of Achilles’ best known and most important connections with gold is that he rejects the treasure, including ten talents of gold (δέκα δὲ χρυσοῖο τάλαντα, Iliad 9.122 & 9.264), that is offered by Agamemnon as an inducement to rejoin the war effort. For he is in receipt of divine intelligence (from his mother Thetis, 9.410–416) that if he continues to fight at Troy he will die young, and his reward is to be immortal fame.
Provision for immortal fame involves, first, recognition from his peers, in the form of treasure-gifts, including spear-prize women, awarded by the army collectively (1.162) in recognition of meritorious service on the raids that bring in the treasure. After that, and in some measure depending on such signal honors, the hero can become a personage in heroic epic, which lasts forever. Agamemnon’s insulting and autocratic revocation of the army’s award of the woman has in effect broken the mechanism by which Achilles can hope for immortal fame. And as he himself points out, treasure itself cannot equally well be worth dying for, and cannot undo death:
Of possessions
cattle and fat sheep are things to be had for the lifting,
and tripods can be won, and the tawny high heads of horses,
but a man’s life cannot come back again, it cannot be lifted
nor captured again by force, once it has crossed the teeth’s barrier. (9.406–409, Lattimore trans.)
Another connection is the famous armor, particularly the shield, created for Achilles by Hephaestus at Iliad 18.478–607. Materials for the shield include bronze, tin, and silver as well, but the figuration or blazonry that dominates the passage prominently features gold.
The association of Hercules with gifts also raises questions. The song elsewhere uses gifts in the sense of talents (in the modern sense of extraordinary god-given abilities, not as weight or mass unit), and presumably is using it in that sense also in relation to Hercules—who is not so much known for gifts, in the sense of presents, as (say) the Magi of Christian myth.
The song apparently hints at a quote which once has been popular but now is known only by classicists:
ll entreat Achilles to lend me the gold with which Hector was ransomed (Achillem orabo, aurum ut mihi det, Hector qui expensus fuit).
T. Maccius Plautus, Mercator, or The Merchant, Act 2, Scene 4
Paul Veyne, in one of his books (''Did the Greek believe their myths'', n.77), gives the line as an ironic example of something irrealistic, as we could say e.g. "I'll ask Santa for some money".
"What does the song refer to?"
It refers to the lyricist's lack of knowledge & unfamiliarity with classical Greek mythology.
I looked up the whole lyrics the whole verse is this
"I've been reading books of old The legends and the myths/ Achilles and his gold/ Hercules and his gifts/ Spiderman's control/ And Batman with his fists/ And clearly I don't see myself upon that list"
The intent of the verse is clear, the writer doesn't see himself as heroic.
But it also demonstrates unfamiliarity with the characters mentioned. What is "Spiderman's control" supposed to mean? Does the writer mean Spidey's agility, i.e. acrobatical control over his body? Or did the writer mean "self control" over emotions? The latter is not something the Spiderman character is known for.
And "Batman with his fists", while Batman is known for martial arts skills, he's much more closely associated with his detective skills & inventive gadgets.
"Hercules and his gifts" is vague & generalized.
In a later verse the writer says "Superman unrolls/ A suit before he lifts" Which doesn't really make much sense either.
So what I think it means overall, is that the writer sat down & said "I want to write about not being heroic, & if I name some popular hero characters it will make the song more popular" then he looked up some names of popular heroic characters & put them in the song without really studying much about them at all.
Actualy, I think it's been mixed up. Achilles had the gift of being unharmable, and Hercules had the golden fur of the Neamean lion. That's all i can think about, and I absoluetly agree, that the lyricist has a big lack of knowledge, because even if we sing it like: Hercules and his gold, Achilles and his gifts, it's still okay with the song both musicaly, rythmicaly, and even poetically.
