Babies at the Top of Death of Hector Tapestry

Homer: The Iliad

Book XXII

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Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Weather and Exceptions apply.

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Contents

• Bk XXII:1-89 Priam and Hecabe fail to dissuade Hector
• Bk XXII:90-130 Hector considers his situation
• Bk XXII:131-187 Achilles chases Hector round the walls
• Bk XXII:188-246 Athene incites Hector to fight
• Bk XXII:247-366 The death of Hector
• Bk XXII:367-404 Achilles drags Hector's corpse in the dust
• Bk XXII:405-515 The grief in Troy

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Bk XXII:1-89 Priam and Hecabe fail to dissuade Hector

The Trojans, having fled like a herd of frightened deer, now leant on the battlements around the city, drying the sweat from their bodies, and quenching their thirst, as the Greeks approached the wall, their shields at the slope. But deadly Fate enticed Hector to halt by the Scaean Gate, in front of the city.

Meanwhile Phoebus Apollo revealed himself to Achilles: 'Why, son of Peleus, being only mortal, do yous run later on me, a deathless god? But now it seems do you know me, so great your fury! Have y'all forgotten the Trojans you routed? They have found refuge in the urban center, while you linger here, trying to kill 1 who cannot die.'

Then swift-footed Achilles replied, in consternation: 'Far-Striker, you lot are the cruellest of gods. You've lured me here, far from the wall, while many who should have bitten the dust achieve Ilium. You lot rob me of my glory, to salvage them, an like shooting fish in a barrel task for one safe himself from vengeance, for I would indeed revenge myself on you if I had the power.' So saying, Achilles ran eagerly towards the city, his legs pounding away like a winning thoroughbred coursing over the evidently in the chariot traces.

Sometime Priam was first to meet him, racing over the plainly, his bronze breastplate gleaming like Sirius, the star of harvest, brightest of stars in the dark of dark. Orion'due south Dog, men call it, glittering brightly yet boding ill, bringing fever to wretched mortals. The old homo groaned aloud, and raising his arms, beat his caput with his hands, shouting entreaties to his beloved son, who stood before the Gate, ready to turn his fury on Achilles.

Stretching out his arms, he chosen to him piteously: 'Hector, honey kid, I beg yous, don't face that homo alone. Seek assistance, lest y'all meet your doom at the hands of Achilles, a stronger and tougher warrior than you. If the gods loved him as little as I do, the dogs and vultures would before long feed on his corpse, and my middle would be eased of a brunt of sorrow, for he has robbed me of many fine sons, killing them or selling them in some far off isle. This very twenty-four hours I miss my two sons, Lycaon and Polydorus, whom Laothoe, princess amid women, bore me. I failed to run across them amidst the troops taking refuge in the city. If they are living, and held captive, we'll ransom them with gold and bronze, from my smashing store. Altes, of glorious name, gave his daughter many gifts. But if they are dead, in Hades' Halls, that is one more sorrow for their mother and I, who engendered them. Yet the people'due south mourning volition be briefer, if Achilles fails to impale you lot too. So take refuge behind the walls, my child, and be the saviour of the Trojans: stay alive, deny this son of Peleus glory. Take pity on me too while I alive, I, poor wretch, for whom it seems Father Zeus reserves a dreadful fate, here after much sorrowful feel, on the threshold of old age, to see my sons slaughtered, my daughters dishonoured, their children hurled aside in anger, my son's wives dragged away, my treasures fallen into savage Achaean hands. In the stop, I shall be slain by a thrust from some abrupt spear, and the flesh-eating dogs before my door volition tear my corpse apart, the very dogs I fed from my table, reared to baby-sit these same doors, dogs that will lie there in the gateway when in their savagery they've lapped my claret. It is fine for a fellow, killed in battle, to prevarication there with his wounds on display: expressionless though he is, it's an honourable sight. But an old human'south naked corpse, his grayness hairs soiled by the dogs, is a distressing matter for u.s.a. wretched mortals.'

With this, the old man tore and plucked the grey hairs from his head, simply failed to move Hector'southward heart. Fifty-fifty though his mother in turn began to weep and wail, pushing aside the folds of her robe and baring her breast, imploring him as she wept: 'Hector, my child, this is the chest that fed you lot: respect and pity me. Call up of united states of america, and oppose the foe from inside the wall, don't stand up and face that harsh warrior, for if he kills you I'll not have your corpse to lay on a bier and grieve over, dearest kid of my body, nor volition the wife you lot richly dowered; but far from us, by the Argive ships, the running dogs will devour yous.'

Bk XXII:90-130 Hector considers his situation

Then they entreated their dear son with tears. Simply all their earnest pleas could non alter Hector'southward listen, and he waited on great Achilles' accelerate. Like a ophidian in the hills, full of venom due to the toxic herbs it eats, that glares balefully and writhes inside its hole, waiting every bit some human approaches, and then Hector held his ground, filled with latent power, his bright shield resting on a jutting outwork. Simply his proud thoughts were troubled: 'Alas, if I retreat through the gate, to the safety of the wall, Polydamas will not exist slow to reproach me, since he brash me to withdraw our forces to the metropolis, on that fatal night when Achilles re-appeared. I refused, though it may have been improve! Now, in my folly, having brought u.s.a. to the brink of ruin, I'd be aback to hear some insignificant Trojan, or his long-robed wife, say: 'Hector has brought ruin on the army, trusting too much in his own right arm.' If that'southward what they'll say, and then I'd exist meliorate by far to see Achilles face to face and impale him before returning to the city, or die gloriously beneath its walls. Of form, I could ditch the bossed shield and heavy helmet, lean my spear on the wall, and get and promise peerless Achilles to return Helen and her treasure to the Atreidae, all that Paris brought in the hollow ships to Troy, to begin this strife. I could say besides that we'll then divide all the remaining treasure in the city, then induce the Elders to state on oath that they'll muffle no part of that treasure, merely grant one-half of all the lovely city holds. But what'southward the point of such thoughts? I'll not approach him like a suppliant only to have him show neither mercy nor respect, but impale me out of hand, stripped of my armour and defenceless as a adult female. This is no lover'south tryst of lad and lass, past oak or rock! Lad and lass, indeed! Amend to come across in encarmine combat, now, and see to whom Zeus grants the glory!

Bk XXII:131-187 Achilles chases Hector round the walls

While he stood there thinking, Achilles, peer of Ares, approached, the plumes of his helmet nodding, brandishing the mighty spear of Pelian ash in his right hand, high above his shoulder, his bronze armour blazing like fire or the rising sun. Now Hector was gripped by fear and, trembling at the sight of him, afraid to stand his footing by the gate, gear up off running. Achilles, confident in his ain speed, pursued him. Similar a hawk, swiftest of birds, swooping on a timorous dove in the mountains, darting towards her with fierce cries as she flees, eager to seize her, and then Achilles ran and Hector fled as fast as he could in terror, below the Trojan wall. Passing the lookout indicate, and the wind-swept wild fig tree, along the cart-track they ran leaving the wall behind, and came to two lovely springs where the waters ascent to feed the eddying Scamander. One flows warm, and steam rises above information technology equally fume from a fire, while even in summer the other is ice-h2o, cold as freezing snowfall or hail. Nearby are the fine broad troughs of rock where the wives and daughters of the Trojans once washed their gleaming wearing apparel in peace-time, before the advent of the Greeks. By the troughs they ran, 1 fleeing, ane pursuing, a fine runner in front simply a amend one chasing him downwardly behind, and this was no race for the prize of a balderdash's hide or a sacrificial ox, a prize such as they give for running, they ran instead for the life of horse-taming Hector.

As thoroughbreds sweep round the turning-post, and compete for the prize of a fine tripod or a woman, to honour some expressionless warrior, so these two warriors ran swiftly three times round the city of Troy, while the gods looked on. And the Father of gods and men took it on himself to speak: 'Well, now, here'due south a sight! A man who is dear to me, chased circular the walls, Hector whom my heart sorrows for, who has burned the thighs of endless oxen on many-ridged Ida'due south heights for me, or on the summit of the citadel. At present noble Achilles, that great runner, hunts him round Priam's city. Take counsel, immortals, decide! Shall we save him from expiry, or good man though he is, shall he die at the hands of Achilles, Peleus' son?'

It was brilliant-eyed Athene who replied: 'Begetter, Lord of the Lightning and the Storm, what is this? Would you lot salvage a mortal from sad decease, to which he was doomed long ago? Do so, just don't expect the rest of united states to concur.'

Zeus, the Cloud-Gatherer, answered: 'Easy, Tritogeneia, my dear child, I was not in earnest, and I shall indulge y'all. Do as you volition, and delay no longer.' With this encouragement, the eager Athene darted down from the top of Olympus.

Bk XXII:188-246 Athene incites Hector to fight

Meanwhile Achilles chased Hector relentlessly, and he could no more escape than a fawn, that a hound starts from a mountain covert. Chased through glade and valley information technology may cower for a while in some thicket, but the dog tracks information technology downwards, running strongly till he gains his quarry. So Achilles chased Hector. Every fourth dimension Hector made a break for the Dardanian Gate hoping to proceeds the shelter of the solid walls, where the defenders might protect him with their missiles, Achilles would head him off towards the evidently, himself keeping the inner track by the walls. Yet, every bit in a dream where our pursuer cannot catch us nor we escape, Achilles could non overtake Hector, nor could Hector milkshake him off. Still, could Hector have eluded fate and so long, had not Apollo, for the last and last time, come to strengthen him and speed him, and had not Achilles signalled to his men not to loose their deadly missiles at the man, lest he himself might be cheated of the celebrity? Yet when they reached The Springs for the quaternary time, the Male parent raised his golden scales, and set the deaths of Achilles and horse-taming Hector in the balance, and lifted it on high. Down sank Hector'due south lot towards Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left his side, while vivid-eyed Athene came to Achilles and continuing close, spoke winged words: 'Glorious Achilles, love of Zeus, now you and I volition impale Hector, and bring the Greeks keen glory. Warlike he may be, but he'll not escape us, even if Apollo, the Far-Striker, grovels before custodianship-begetting Father Zeus. Stop at present and catch your jiff. I will go and incite him to fight you face to face.'

He, delighted, at in one case obeyed her words, halted and stood there leaning on his bronze-tipped ash spear, while she appeared to noble Hector in the course of Deiphobus, that tireless speaker: 'Dear brother, swift Achilles pressed yous hard there, chasing you round the city at a pace, just here permit us make a stand together, and defend ourselves.'

Great Hector of the gleaming helm, replied: 'Deiphobus, of all my brothers built-in to Hecabe and Priam, you lot are by far the dearest, and now I'll honor you in my heed even more, since you, while the others stay within and watch, have come to find me outside the wall.'

'Honey brother,' said bright-eyed Athene, in disguise, 'our parents and friends in plow begged me not to come here, so terrified are they of Achilles, but I was tormented past anxiety. Let's assail him head on, not spare our spears, and discover out if he'll kill u.s.a. and behave our claret-stained armour to the hollow ships, or be conquered by our blades.'

Bk XXII:247-366 The decease of Hector

Athene deceived Hector with her words and her disguise, and led him on till he and Achilles met. Hector of the gleaming captain spoke first: 'I will not run from you lot, as before, son of Peleus. My centre failed me equally I waited for your attack, and three times round Priam's urban center nosotros ran, only now my heart tells me to stand and confront you, to kill or be killed. Come let the states swear an oath before the gods, for they are the all-time witnesses of such things. If Zeus lets me kill y'all and survive, then when I've stripped you of your glorious armour I'll not mistreat your corpse, I'll return your body to your people, if you will do the same for me.'

Swift-footed Achilles glared at him in reply: 'Curse you, Hector, and don't talk of oaths to me. Lions and men make no compacts, nor are wolves and lambs in sympathy: they are opposed, to the end. Y'all and I are beyond friendship: nor volition in that location be peace between us till one or the other dies and sates Ares, lord of the ox-hide shield, with his claret. Summon up your reserves of courage, be a spearman at present and a warrior dauntless. There is no escape from me, and soon Athene will bring y'all down with my spear. Now pay the price for all my grief, for all my friends you've slaughtered with your blade.'

So saying he raised his long-shadowed spear and hurled it. Just glorious Hector kept an centre on it and, crouching, dodged so the shaft flew above him, and the point cached itself in the basis behind. Yet Pallas Athene snatched it up and returned it to Achilles, too swiftly for Prince Hector to see. And Hector spoke to Peleus' peerless son: 'It seems you missed, godlike Achilles, despite your certainty that Zeus has doomed me. It was mere glibness of speech communication, mere exact cunning, trying to unnerve me with fright, to make me lose strength and courage. You'll get no run a risk to pierce my back every bit I flee, so, if the gods allow y'all, drive information technology through my breast every bit I assail, dodge my statuary spear if y'all tin. I pray it lodges deep in your mankind! If you were expressionless, our greatest bane, war would exist like shooting fish in a barrel for us Trojans.'

And then saying, he raised and hurled his long-shadowed spear, striking Achilles' shield square on, though the spear simply rebounded. Hector was angered by his vain attempt with the swift shaft, and stood there in dismay, lacking a second missile. He chosen aloud to Deiphobus of the White Shield, calling for his long spear, merely he was nowhere to be establish, and Hector realised the deceit: 'Ah, and then the gods have lured me to my expiry. I thought Deiphobus was past my side, simply he is still in the city, Athene fooled me. An evil fate's upon me, Death is no longer far abroad, and him at that place is no escaping. Zeus, and his son, the Far-Striker, decided all this long ago, they who were one time eager to defend me, and destiny at present overtakes me. But let me non die without a fight, without truthful celebrity, without some deed that men unborn may hear.'

With this, he drew the sharp blade at his side, a powerful long-sword, and gathering his limbs together swooped like a high-soaring eagle that falls to earth from the night clouds to seize a sick lamb or a cowering hare. And then Hector swooped, brandishing his keen bract. Achilles ran to meet him middle filled with barbarous power, covering his breast with his great, skilfully worked shield, while to a higher place his gleaming captain with its four ridges waved the golden plumes Hephaestus placed thickly at its crest. Brilliant as the Evening Star that floats among the midnight constellations, prepare there the loveliest jewel in the sky, gleamed the tip of Achilles abrupt spear brandished in his correct hand, as he sought to work evil on noble Hector, searching for the likeliest place to country a blow on his fair flesh.

Now, the fine bronze armour he stripped from mighty Patroclus when he killed him covered all Hector's mankind except for i opening at the throat, where the collarbones knit neck and shoulders, and violent death may come nigh swiftly. At that place, equally Hector charged at him, noble Achilles aimed his ash spear, and drove its heavy statuary blade clean through the tender cervix, though without cutting the windpipe or robbing Hector of the power of spoken communication. Hector vicious in the dust and Achilles shouted out in triumph: 'While you lot were despoiling Patroclus, no doubt, in your folly, you thought yourself quite safe, Hector, and forgot all about me in my absenteeism. Far from him, by the hollow ships, was a mightier man, who should take been his helper merely stayed behind, and that was I, who now take brought yous low. The dogs and carrion birds will tear autonomously your flesh, but him the Achaeans will coffin.'

'Achilles kills Hector' - Crispijn van de Passe (I), 1613

Then Hector of the gleaming captain replied, in a feeble vocalism: 'At your feet I beg, by your parents, by your own life, don't let the dogs devour my mankind by the hollow ships. Take the bribe my royal male parent and mother will offer, stores of gold and bronze, and let them acquit my body home, so the Trojans and their wives may grant me in death my portion of fire.'

But fleet-footed Achilles glared at him in answer: 'Don't speak of my parents, dog. I wish the fury and the pain in me could drive me to carve and eat you raw for what y'all did, equally surely as this is truthful: no living man volition go on the dogs from gnawing at your skull, not if men weighed out twenty, thirty times your worth in bribe, and promised even more, non though Dardanian Priam bid them requite your weight in gold, not even then will your royal mother lay y'all on a bier to grieve for you, the son she bore, rather shall dogs, and carrion birds, devour you utterly.'

Then Hector of the gleaming helm spoke at the betoken of death: 'I know yous truly now, and see your fate, nor was it mine to sway y'all. The middle in your breast is iron indeed. But think, lest the gods, remembering me, turn their wrath on you lot, that solar day by the Scaean Gate when, dauntless equally you are, Paris kills you, with Apollo's help.'

Death enfolded him, every bit he uttered these words, and, wailing its lot, his spirit fled from the body down to Hades, leaving youth and manhood behind. A corpse it was that noble Achilles addressed: 'Lie at that place then in death, and I will face my own, whenever Zeus and the other deathless gods determine.'

Bk XXII:367-404 Achilles drags Hector's corpse in the grit

With this, Achilles drew his bronze-tipped spear from the corpse and laid information technology down, and as he began to strip the claret-stained armour from Hector'south shoulders he was joined past others of the Greeks, who ran to gaze at Hector'southward size and wondrous class. Even so all who approached struck the body a accident, and turning to a comrade, one said: 'Meet, Hector'due south easier to deal with now than when he set the ships afire.' With that, he wounded the corpse.

When noble Achilles, the great runner, had stripped away the armour, he rose and made a speech to the Achaeans: 'Friends, leaders, princes of the Argives, now the gods have allow united states of america impale this man, who harmed u.s.a. more than all the residual together, permit us make an armed reconnaissance of the metropolis, while we run across what the Trojans accept in mind, whether they'll carelessness the city now their champion has fallen, or whether they'll fight on, though Hector is no more than. Merely why retrieve of that? There is another corpse, unwept, unburied lying by the ships, that of Patroclus, my beloved friend, whom I shall not forget every bit long every bit I walk the world among the living. And though in the Firm of Hades men may forget their dead, fifty-fifty there I shall remember him. So, you lot sons of Achaea, raise the vocal of triumph, and drag this corpse back to the ships. We have won keen glory, and killed the noble Hector, whom the Trojans prayed to like a god, in Troy.'

So saying, he institute a way to defile the fallen prince. He pierced the tendons of both feet behind from heel to ankle, and through them threaded ox-hide thongs, tying them to his chariot, leaving the corpse's caput to trail along the ground. Then lifting the glorious armour aboard, he mounted and touched the horses with his whip, and they eagerly leapt forward. Dragged behind, Hector's corpse raised a cloud of dust, while his outspread hair flowed, black, on either side. That caput, once so fine, trailed in the dirt, now Zeus allowed his enemies to mutilate his corpse on his ain native soil.

'Achilles drags Hector behind his chariot' - Workshop of Bernard Picart, 1710

Bk XXII:405-515 The grief in Troy

Seeing her son's hair fouled with dust, Hecabe, his mother gave a bully cry, plucked the gleaming veil from her head, and tore her hair. His father Priam groaned in anguish, and a wave of grief spread round them through the city, no less than if all of lofty Ilium were on fire. The quondam homo could scarcely exist restrained in his frenzy, every bit he made for the Dardanian Gate. He grovelled in the dust, imploring those around, calling each man by his proper name: 'Friends, let me be, despite your intendance. Let me get out from the city lone, to the Achaean ships. I volition meet if that human being of violence, devoid of shame, respects old age and my weight of years. He has a father, Peleus, as erstwhile, I think, as I am, who begot him and raised him to be a blight to Troy, though to me higher up all others he brings sorrow, killing and so many of my sons in their prime. Nonetheless despite my grief for the others, I mourn this i in a higher place all, with a bitter sorrow that will send me to Hades' Halls, this Hector. If he could simply have died in my artillery! Then I and his female parent, who to her sorrow bore him, could have wept and wailed our fill over his corpse.'

So he wept, and the people added their tears. Now, among the women, Hecabe raised loud lament: 'My child, how wretched I am! Why should I live on in suffering now y'all are dead? You were my pride of Troy, night and day, a saviour, greeted as a god, past every homo and women in this city, surely their not bad glory while you lot lived. But now death and fate overtake you.'

Hecabe wept, but Andromache, Hector's married woman, as yet knew nothing, no ane had even told her that her husband had stayed exterior the walls. She was at work in an inner room of the lofty palace, weaving a double-width purple tapestry, with a multicoloured pattern of flowers. In all ignorance she had asked her ladies-in-waiting to fix a great cauldron on the fire and then that Hector would have hot water for a bath, when he returned, never dreaming that far from all thought of baths, he had been brought low by Achilles and bright-eyed Athene. Just now the cries and groans from the wall reached her, she trembled and the shuttle barbarous from her manus. She called to her ladies-in-waiting: '2 of you come up with me. I must know what is happening. That was my married man's noble female parent I heard, my eye is in my mouth and my legs are numb. Some evil afflicts the House of Priam. May such news stay far from me, only I fear to my sorrow lest great Achilles has cutting dauntless Hector off from the city, and quenched the fatal courage that possessed him, for he would never stay safely in the ranks, just must always charge ahead, yielding to none in daring.'

So maxim, she ran through the halls, her heart pounding, abreast herself, and her ladies followed. When they came to the wall, where the men were thronging, she rushed to the battlements and gazing out saw Hector'due south corpse existence hauled from the metropolis, the powerful horses dragging it savagely towards the hollow ships. Darkness shrouded her eyes, enfolding her, and she fell backward, senseless. From her head savage the bright headdress, the frontlet and netted cap, the plaited strands, and the veil that gilt Aphrodite had given her when Hector of the gleaming helm had led her from Eëtion's house, having paid a princely dowry for his helpmate. Her hubby's sisters and his brother's wives crowded round her, and supported her in her dead faint.

When she revived and her senses returned, she lifted her vox in complaining, to the women of Troy, crying: 'Oh, Hector, alas for me! It seems we were born for this, you lot in Priam's palace, hither in Troy, I in Thebe beneath wooded Placus, in Eëtion'due south house. He it was who reared me from a babe, unlucky begetter of an sick-fated child. How I wish he'd never engendered me! At present you are gone to the House of Hades under the earth, but I remain cold with grief, a widow in your halls. And your son, the child of doomed parents, our kid, a mere baby, tin no longer give you joy, dead Hector: nor tin you give joy to him.

Even if he survives this dreadful war against the Greeks, toil and suffering volition be his fate, insufficient of all his lands. An orphaned child is severed from his playmates; He goes almost with downcast looks and tear-stained cheeks, plucks his father's friends past the cloak or tunic, till one, from pity, holds the wine-loving cup to his lips, but only for a moment, enough to wet his lips but not his palate. And some lad with both parents live strikes him with his fist and drives him from the feast, jeering at him in reproach: "Away with yous, now! You've no father here." And then my child will run in tears to his widowed mother, my son Astyanax, who sabbatum on his father's knee eating the rich fat and the sheep's marrow, and when he was sleepy and tired of play, slept in his nurse's arms in a soft bed, his dreams sweet. At present, with his love father gone, ills volition crowd on him. Astyanax, that is Lord of the City, the Trojans phone call him, since you Hector were the great defender of the gates and the high walls. Now past the beaked ships, far from your kin, the writhing worms volition devour your corpse, once the dogs have had their fill, your naked corpse, though in your house are all the fine, finely-woven clothes that women's easily can fashion. All those I will burn in a peachy fire, since you will no more wear or turn a profit past them, as a mark of honour shown you by the men and women of Troy.'

So Andromache spoke, in tears, while the women joined in her complaining.

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