Chapter summary
While the Achaeans arm themselves around Achilles and the Trojans wait on a rise of the plain, Zeus sends Themis to summon all the gods to assembly, and they all come, the rivers (except Oceanus) and the nymphs. Poseidon asks what Zeus plans, and Zeus answers that he cares for mortals even though they are destined to die, but that he himself will remain seated on Olympus, watching; the other gods may go down and help whichever side each prefers. The motive is fear: if Achilles fights alone, the Trojans will offer him no resistance, and, enraged by the death of his companion, he may tear down the wall beyond what fate allows. The gods divide: Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Hermes and Hephaestus go to the side of the Achaeans; Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Leto, the river Xanthus and Aphrodite, to that of the Trojans. While the gods stay apart, the Achaeans exult at Achilles' return to battle and the Trojans tremble to see him in his armor; when the gods mingle with men, Strife stirs both armies, Athena and Ares shout, Zeus thunders from above and Poseidon shakes the earth, so much that Hades leaps from his throne in fear that the ground will split open and show his house. The gods line up in pairs: Apollo against Poseidon, Athena against Ares, Artemis against Hera, Hermes against Leto, and Hephaestus against the river, which the gods call Xanthus and men call Scamander.
Achilles, however, does not seek gods: he wants Hector, and his spirit drives him to sate even Ares with blood. To stop him, Apollo takes the form of Lycaon, son of Priam, and urges Aeneas to face him, recalling the boasts Aeneas used to make at banquets. Aeneas does not want to: he already fled from Achilles' spear on Mount Ida and escaped only because Zeus gave him strength in his knees; he is convinced there is always a god at Achilles' side. Apollo answers that Aeneas is the son of a goddess, daughter of Zeus, while Achilles comes from a sea goddess, and infuses him with courage. Hera sees Aeneas advancing and gathers Poseidon and Athena: she proposes either to make him retreat, or to place one of them beside Achilles, so that he will know that the best of the immortals love him and not be frightened when a god confronts him in combat, for the gods show themselves terrible. The gods came down so that today Achilles would suffer nothing; afterward, he will suffer what fate spun for him at birth. Poseidon disagrees with starting a war among gods: it is better to sit apart, on the wall that the Trojans and Athena built for Heracles, and leave the war to men, intervening only if Ares or Apollo begin the fight or detain Achilles. The two groups of gods sit down, each on its own side, and none dares open the war, though Zeus urged them.
Achilles and Aeneas advance into the space between the armies, and Achilles' fury is compared to that of a lion whom the whole village wants to hunt. Achilles asks Aeneas what he hopes to gain: to be king of the Trojans in place of Priam? The king has sons and sense, and Achilles has already put Aeneas to flight on Ida, with the help of Zeus and Athena. Aeneas answers that he is not frightened by words, recites his genealogy from Dardanus, says that Zeus increases and diminishes the worth of men as he pleases and that the tongue of mortals is fickle, and proposes that they test each other with bronze. He hurls his spear at Achilles' shield; Achilles moves the shield away from his body, fearing the point will pierce it, but the gold that Hephaestus set among the five layers (two of bronze, two of tin and one of gold) stops the spear. Achilles then throws, and pierces two rings of Aeneas's shield; Aeneas crouches, and the spear fixes itself in the ground behind his shoulder, and he is dazed. Achilles draws his sword, and Aeneas raises an enormous stone. Poseidon, who sees the scene, tells the other gods that Aeneas will go down to Hades for having obeyed Apollo, though he is innocent and always generous in offerings, and proposes to save him, so that Zeus will not be angered and so that the line of Dardanus, the most beloved by Zeus among the sons of mortal women, will not perish: Zeus already hates the house of Priam, and now Aeneas and his sons' sons will reign over the Trojans. Hera leaves the decision to Poseidon, reminding them that she and Athena swore before all never to keep the day of ruin away from the Trojans, not even when Troy burns entirely.
Poseidon pours mist over Achilles' eyes, pulls the spear from Aeneas's shield and lays it at Achilles' feet, and lifts Aeneas from the ground, so that he crosses many ranks of heroes, chariots and horses to the far end of the field. There the god asks him what divinity made him face a man stronger and dearer to the immortals, orders him to retreat whenever he meets Achilles, and says that only after Achilles' death may he fight in the front rank, for no other Achaean will kill him. Poseidon lifts the mist, and Achilles, astonished to see the spear fallen and the adversary gone, concludes that Aeneas is indeed dear to the gods and that he had taken for boasting what was true. Then he moves along the lines exhorting the Achaeans: alone, he cannot face so many men, nor would Ares or Athena; he will do all he can. Hector exhorts the Trojans: against the gods he would fight with words, but with the spear it is difficult; Achilles will not fulfill everything he promises, and Hector will go to meet him, even though his hands are like fire. Apollo approaches Hector and orders him to wait for Achilles in the midst of the crowd, so that he is not wounded at close range; Hector, startled to hear the god's voice, withdraws into the mass of Trojans.
Achilles kills Iphition and then Demoleon and Hippodamas. Then he goes after Polydorus, the youngest son of Priam, whom the father forbade to fight because he was the youngest and most beloved, and who ran among the front ranks to show the speed of his feet. Achilles strikes him in the back, and Polydorus falls to his knees, holding his own entrails. Hector sees his brother, mist falls over his eyes, and he can no longer bear to stay away: he advances against Achilles with his spear raised. Achilles recognizes him as the man who most stirred his spirit, the one who killed his honored companion, and says they will no longer dodge each other. Hector answers with the same words as Aeneas, that he is not frightened by insults, and adds that he knows Achilles is far better, but that the outcome lies on the knees of the gods. He throws his spear, and Athena turns it aside with a breath to his feet. Achilles hurls himself at Hector, but Apollo snatches him away and hides him in a thick mist. Three times Achilles strikes the air with his spear; on the fourth, he insults Hector: he has escaped death again, saved by Apollo, to whom he must pray when he goes into the din of spears; Achilles will reach him later, if some god helps him too.
Achilles then turns against the other Trojans and kills Dryope, Demuchus, Laogonus and Dardanus. Tros, son of Alastor, embraces his knees and asks to be spared, reminding him that they are the same age, but the narrator calls him a fool: Achilles had no soft heart, and he wounds him in the liver. Then come Mulius, Echeclus, Deucalion, Rhigmus and Areithous. The book closes with Achilles running everywhere like fire through a dry forest, and with the horses trampling corpses and shields like oxen threshing wheat, the axle of the chariot spattered with blood and Achilles thirsting for glory, his hands wet with blood.
Analysis
The book separates what the gods can do from what fate fixes, and does so three times. Zeus fears that Achilles will bring down the wall beyond what fortune allows; Hera agrees to protect Achilles today and declares that later he will suffer what the thread of his birth has reserved for him; Poseidon saves Aeneas because he is destined to escape and to reign. Divine interventions spare someone whom fate still wants alive or, in the case of Hector, someone whom Apollo snatches from Achilles' hand without the text saying that fate demands it. Hector states the essential point of the human position: the outcome lies on the knees of the gods.
The book also shows the same dialogue twice: Aeneas and Hector open their replies to Achilles with the same three verses, do not expect to frighten me with words as if I were a child, and both soon turn to bronze. The text does not explain the coincidence, but it ties the two Trojans together before the same adversary. What separates them is the outcome: Aeneas is carried off by Poseidon because a lineage depends on him, Hector is carried off by Apollo before Achilles can reach him, and Tros, whom no god comes to aid, dies on his knees before a man who does not listen to him.
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