by Homer
so that he could speak, making an exchange of words.
He fell in the dust. And shining Achilles vaunted:330
“Hector, you surely thought when you stripped Patroclus
that you were safe, and you thought nothing of me as I was absent—
pitiable fool. For standing by, his far greater avenger,
I remained behind by the hollow ships—
I who have broken the strength of your knees. You the dogs and birds
will rip apart shamefully; Patroclus the Achaeans will honor with funeral rites.”
Then with little strength Hector of the shimmering helm addressed him:
“By your soul, by your knees, by your parents,
do not let the dogs devour me by the ships of the Achaeans,
but take the bronze and abundance of gold,340
the gifts my father and lady mother will give you;
give my body back to go home, so that
the Trojans and the Trojan wives will give my dead body its portion of the fire.”
Then looking at him from under his brows Achilles of the swift feet answered:
“Do not, you dog, supplicate me by knees or parents.
Would that my passion and spirit would drive me
to devour your hacked-off flesh raw, such things you have done;
so there is no one who can keep the dogs from your head,
not if they haul here and weigh out ten times and twenty times
the ransom, and promise more,350
not if Dardanian Priam seeks to pay your weight in gold,
not in any way will your lady mother
mourn you laid out upon your bier, the child she bore;
but the dogs and the birds will devour you wholly.”
Then, dying, Hector of the shimmering helm addressed him:
“Knowing you well, I divine my fate; nor will I persuade you.
Surely, the soul in your breast is iron.
Yet now take care, lest I become the cause of the god’s wrath against you,
on that day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo
destroy you, great warrior though you be, at the Scaean gates.”360
Then the closure of death enveloped him as he was speaking,
and his soul flying from his limbs started for Hades,
lamenting her fate, abandoning manhood and all its young vigor.
But shining Achilles addressed him, dead though he was:
“Lie dead. I will take death at that time when
Zeus and the other deathless gods wish to accomplish it.”
He spoke and pulled his bronze spear from the dead body
and laying it aside he stripped the bloodied armor from Hector’s shoulders.
But the other sons of the Achaeans ran up around him
and admired Hector’s physique and beauty,370
nor was there a man who stood by him without inflicting a wound.
And thus each would speak, looking at his neighbor:
“Well, well; he is softer to handle, to be sure,
this Hector, than when he torched our ships with blazing fire.”
Thus they would speak, and stabbed him as they stood by.
But when shining Achilles of the swift feet had stripped Hector of his armor,
he stood amid the Achaeans and pronounced winged words:
“O friends, leaders and counselors of the Achaeans;
since the gods gave me this man to be broken,
who committed evil deeds, more than all the other Trojans together,380
come, let us go under arms and scout around the city
so that we may learn the disposition of the Trojans, what they have in mind,
whether they will abandon their high city now this man is dead,
or desire to remain, although Hector is no longer with them—
but why does my spirit recite these things?
There lies by the ships a dead man, unmourned, unburied—
Patroclus. I shall not forget him as long as I am
among the living and my own knees have power in them.
And if other men forget the dead in Hades,
I will remember my beloved companion even there.390
But come now, Achaean men, singing a victory song
let us return to our hollowed ships, and bring him along.
We have achieved great glory; we have slain shining Hector,
whom the Trojans worshipped throughout their city as a god.”
He spoke, and conceived a shocking deed for shining Hector;
behind both feet he pierced the tendon
between the heel and ankle and fastened there oxhide straps,
and bound him to his chariot and let the head drag along.
Lifting his glorious armor, Achilles mounted his chariot,
and whipped the horses to begin, and they two, not unwilling, took off.400
A cloud of dust rose as Hector was dragged, his blue-black hair
fanning around him, his head lolling wholly in the dust
that before was handsome; so Zeus gave him to his enemies
to be defiled in the land of his own fathers.
His head was wholly befouled by dust; and now his mother
ripped her hair and flung her shining veil
far away, shrieking her grief aloud as she looked on her child.
His beloved father cried out pitiably and around them the people
were gripped by wailing and crying throughout the city—
it was as if the whole of410
lofty Ilion, from its topmost point, were consumed with fire.
With difficulty the people restrained old Priam in his grief
as he strove to go forth from the Dardanian gates.
Thrashing in the muck, he entreated all,
calling off each man by name:
“Hold off friend, for all your care for me, and let me
leave the city to go to the ships of the Achaeans.
I will entreat this reckless man of violent deeds,
if somehow he may respect my age and pity
my years. Even his father is of such years,420
Peleus, who bore him and raised him to be the destruction
of the Trojans; and beyond all men he has inflicted hardship on me.
For so many of my flourishing sons he killed,
but for all my grief, I did not mourn as much for all of them
as for this one, bitter grief for whom will carry me down to the house of Hades—
Hector. Would that he died in my arms.
We would have glutted ourselves with crying and weeping,
his mother, she, ill-fated woman, who bore him, and I.”
Thus he spoke lamenting; and thereupon the people mourned.
And Hecuba led the Trojan women in passionate lament:430
“My child, I am nothing. Why should I live now, grievously suffering,
when you are dead? You who were night and day
my triumph through the city, a blessing to all,
to the Trojans and the Trojan women throughout the city, who received you
like a god; for to them you were, indeed, their glory,
while you lived; and now death and fate have overtaken you.”
Thus she spoke, crying. But Hector’s wife knew nothing.
For no trusty messenger had come to her
announcing that her husband remained outside the walls,
and she was weaving at her loom in the corner of her high-roofed house440
a crimson cloak of double-thickness, and working intricate figures in it.
She called through the house to her attendants with the lovely hair
to set a great tripod over the fire, so that
there would be a warm bath for Hector, when he returned home from battle—
poor wretch, she did not know that far from all baths
gleaming-eyed Athena had broken him at the hands of Achilles.
The
n she heard the keening and groaning from the tower
and her limbs shook, and the shuttle fell to the ground,
and she called back to her maids with the beautiful hair:
“Come, both of you follow me; I will see what trouble has happened.450
I hear the voice of Hector’s worthy mother,
the heart in my own breast leaps to my mouth, my limbs beneath me
are rigid; something evil is come near the sons of Priam.
May this word not come to my hearing; but terribly
I fear that shining Achilles has cut my bold Hector
from the city on his own, and driving him toward the plain
has stopped him of that fateful ardor
that possessed him, since he never remained in the ranks of men,
but rushed far to the front, yielding in his courage to no one.”
So speaking she raced through the hall like a madwoman,460
her heart shaking; and her two maids ran with her.
But when she reached the tower and the crowd of men,
she stood on the wall, staring around her; and saw him
dragged before the city. Swift horses
dragged him, unconcernedly, to the hollow ships of the Achaeans.
Dark night descended over her eyes,
she fell backward and breathed out her soul;
far from her head she flung her shining headdress,
the diadem and cap and the braided binding,
and the veil, which golden Aphrodite gave her470
on that day when Hector of the shimmering helm led her
out of the house of Eëtion, when he gave countless gifts for her dowry.
In a throng around her stood her husband’s sisters and his brothers’ wives,
who supported her among themselves, as she was stricken to the point of death.
But when then she regained her breath and the strength in her breast was collected,
with gulping sobs she spoke with the Trojan women:
“Hector, I am unlucky. For we were both born to one fate,
you in Troy, in the house of Priam,
and I in Thebes, under forested Plakos,
in the house of Eëtion, who reared me when I was still young,480
ill-fated he, I of bitter fate. I wish that he had not begotten me.
Now you go to the house of Hades in the depths of the earth,
leaving me in shuddering grief,
a widow in your house. The child is still only a baby,
whom we bore, you and I, both ill-fated. You will
be, Hector, no help to him, now you have died, nor he to you.
For even if he escapes this war of the Achaeans and all its tears,
there will always be for him pain and care hereafter.
Other men will rob him of his land;
the day of orphaning cuts a child off entirely from those his age;490
he is bent low in all things, his cheeks are tearstained.
In his neediness, the child approaches his father’s companions,
he tugs one by the cloak, another by his tunic;
pitying him, one of them offers him a little cup
and he moistens his lips, but he does not moisten his palate.
But a child blessed with both parents will beat him away from the feast,
striking him with his hands, reviling him with abuse:
‘Get away — your father does not dine with us’—
and crying the boy comes up to his widowed mother—
Astyanax; who before on his father’s knees500
used to eat only marrow and the rich fat of sheep,
then when sleep took him and he left off his childish play,
he would slumber in bed in his nurse’s embrace,
in his soft bedding, his heart filled with cheery thoughts.
Now he will suffer many things, missing his dear father—
‘Astyanax’—‘little lord of the city’—whom the Trojans called by this name,
for you alone, Hector, defended their gates and long walls.
Now beside the curved ships, away from your parents,
the writhing worms devour you when the dogs have had enough
of your naked body; yet there are clothes laid aside in the house,510
finely woven, beautiful, fashioned by the hands of women.
Now I will burn them all in a blazing fire,
for they are no use to you, you are not wrapped in them—
I will burn them to be an honor to you in the sight of the Trojan men and Trojan women.”
So she spoke, crying, and the women in response mourned.
23.ILIÁDOS Ψ
So they mourned throughout the city. And the Achaeans,
when they reached their ships and the Hellespont,
scattered, each man to his own vessel;
yet Achilles did not let the Myrmidons disperse,
but spoke to his battle-loving companions:
“Myrmidons, you of the swift horses, my trusted comrades,
let us not yet unyoke our single-hoofed horses from their chariots,
but with our horses and their chariots let us draw close
and mourn Patroclus; for this is the honor of the dead.
And when we have taken solace in painful lamentation,10
we will release the horses and all take our meal here.”
So he spoke; and together the men cried aloud, and Achilles led them.
Three times around the corpse they drove their fine-maned horses
weeping; and Thetis stirred among them desire for lamentation.
The sand of the shore, the arms of the men were soaked
with tears; for such was their grief for Patroclus, master of the rout.
And the son of Peleus led their passionate lament,
placing his man-slaughtering hands upon the breast of his companion:
“May it be well with thee, O Patroclus, even in the house of Hades;
I am fulfilling now all I pledged to you before,20
dragging Hector here to give to the dogs to devour raw,
and before your funeral pyre I will cut the throats of twelve
of Troy’s noble sons, in rage for your slaying.”
He spoke, and conceived a shocking deed for shining Hector,
stretching him face down beside the bier of Menoetius’ son Patroclus
in the dust. And his soldiers to a man took off their armor,
bronze and glittering, and loosed their high-necked horses.
And they sat themselves beside the ship of swift-footed Aeacides
in their great numbers; and to them he gave a funeral feast fit for their desire.
Many sleek cattle stretched their necks across the iron blade,30
their throats cut, many sheep and bleating goats;
many white-tusked pigs luxuriant with fat
were singed and spread across the fire of Hephaestus;
and everywhere around the corpse blood flowed in cups.
And then the Achaean kings conducted him, their lord,
swift-footed Achilles, to the shelter of illustrious Agamemnon,
inducing him with difficulty, angered at heart as he still was for his companion.
And when after setting out they came to Agamemnon’s shelter,
they at once commanded the clear-voiced heralds
to set over the fire a great three-legged cauldron, in hope they could persuade40
the son of Peleus to wash away the bloody gore.
But adamantly he refused, and swore an oath:
“No by Zeus, who is the highest and most powerful god,
it is unseemly that cleansing water come near my head,
until I have placed Patroclus on his pyre and mounded up his grave
and cut my hair, since no second sorrow will come to my heart
like this, so long as I am among the living.
But now let us submit to this hateful feast,
and at dawn, Agamemnon, lord of men, dispatch your people
to bring in timber, and supply however much is fitting50
that a dead man have when he journeys beneath the misty nether darkness,
so that weariless fire consumes him
all the swifter from our sight, and the men turn to their tasks.”
So he spoke; and the men heard him well and obeyed.
With haste they each prepared their meal and
feasted, nor did any man’s appetite lack his due portion.
And when they had put away desire for eating and drinking,
they departed to sleep, each to his shelter;
but the son of Peleus lay on the shore of the tumultuous sea,
groaning deeply, with his many Myrmidons,60
in a clear place, where the waves washed upon the beach.
And when sleep took hold of him, melting the cares of his heart,
sweet, enveloping sleep—for his shining limbs were exhausted
from hounding Hector to windswept Ilion—
there came to him the shade of poor Patroclus,
like to him in every way, his great stature, his fine eyes,
his voice, even the clothes such as his body wore.
And this stood above Achilles’ head and spoke a word to him:
“You sleep, and have no thought of me, Achilles;
you were not careless of me when I lived, only when I died.70
Bury me quickly, let me pass the gates of Hades;
the shades, the images of the worn-out dead, keep me a long way off,
nor let me mingle with them beyond the river,
and in vain I wander by the wide-gated house of Hades.
And give me too your hand, I beseech you; for never again
will I return from Hades, once you have given me my portion of the fire.
You and I will not in life sit apart from our beloved companions,
and make plans together, but hateful death
gapes round me, allotted to me at my very birth.
And your own fate, Achilles, you who are like the gods,80
is to be slain beneath the wall of the prosperous Trojans.
And I will say and charge you with another thing, if you will be persuaded;
do not lay my bones apart from yours, Achilles,
but together, even as we were raised in your house,
when Menoetius brought me, when I was little, out of Opoeis
to your home, because of an evil murder,
on the day when I killed the son of Amphidamas—
I was a child, it was not intentional—in anger over a game of knuckle-bones.
Then the horseman Peleus received me in his house