Chapter summary
The Trojans who fled to the city cool off from sweat and thirst, leaning on the battlements like deer, and the Achaeans approach the wall with their shields tilted over their shoulders. Only Hector stays outside, before the Scaean Gates of Troy, held there by a deadly fate. Apollo, who had just turned Achilles away from the pursuit in the guise of the Trojan Agenor, now shows himself as a god and asks why a mortal pursues an immortal: Achilles no longer cares about the Trojans who fled, he says, and cannot kill him, because he is not destined to die. Achilles answers indignantly that the god deceived him, took him from the wall, stole great glory from him, and saved the Trojans without fear of punishment, and that he would take revenge if he had the strength for it. Then he runs back to the city, and Priam sees him first, shining like the autumn star that brings fever to mortals.
From the height of the wall, Priam groans, beats his head, and begs his son, arms outstretched, not to wait alone for that man, who is far stronger, lest he be vanquished early. He speaks of two sons, Lycaon and Polydorus, whom he does not see among those who returned to the city: if they are alive, they will be ransomed with bronze and gold; if they are dead, the grief will be his and their mother's, and it will be shorter for the rest of the people, unless Hector dies too. He asks that his son come inside, save the Trojan men and women, and have pity on the old man who still has thoughts, whom Zeus will destroy on the threshold of old age, after he has seen his sons dead, his daughters dragged off, his grandchildren thrown to the ground, and the dogs he raised devouring him at his door, at his own table. For a young man killed in battle everything is beautiful, he says, but dogs dishonoring the white head and the nakedness of an old man who is dead are the most pitiable thing among mortals. He tears out his white hair and does not persuade Hector. His mother, Hecuba, weeps on the other side, opens her robe and shows her breast: she asks her son to respect the gesture, to remember the breast that nursed him, and to defend the city from within the wall. If Achilles kills him, she will not be able to mourn him on the bed, nor will the wife who brought rich bridal gifts, because swift dogs will eat him by the ships of the Argives, far from both of them. Father and mother do not persuade him, and Hector keeps waiting for Achilles, like the serpent of the mountain before its lair, which has eaten bad herbs and is full of hatred.
Alone by the wall, Hector debates with himself. If he goes in, Polydamas will be the first to reproach him: he had advised him to retreat to the city on the night when Achilles rose again to fight, and Hector did not obey, and now he has lost the army through his own madness. He is ashamed before the Trojan men and women, and prefers to return having killed Achilles or to die with fame before the city. He imagines laying down his shield, helmet, and spear and going to meet Achilles, promising him Helen, the goods that Paris carried to Troy, and half of what the city holds; then he quickly discards the idea, for Achilles would have no pity and would kill a naked man as one kills a woman. There is no possible conversation, "from the oak or the rock," as there is between a girl and a boy; it is better to fight as quickly as possible and see to whom the Olympian gives glory.
Achilles arrives, like Enyalius, brandishing his ash spear, the bronze shining like fire or the rising sun. A tremor seizes Hector, who abandons the gates and flees, and Achilles pursues him as the falcon pursues the dove. They run along the chariot road, past the watchtower, the fig tree battered by the wind, and the two springs of the Scamander, one warm and one cold, beside which the Trojan women washed clothes in peacetime. They do not run for a sacrificial animal or for an ox-hide shield, but for Hector's life, and they circle the city three times. The gods look on, and Zeus laments seeing before the walls the man who had burned so many thigh pieces of oxen on Ida and on the citadel; he asks the gods whether they will save Hector from death or hand him over at once to Achilles. Athena objects that he wants to free from death a mortal long ago destined by Moira, and that the other gods do not approve. Zeus says that he does not speak with a firm mind, that he wants to be gentle with her, and tells her to do what she has in mind; Athena descends from Olympus.
Achilles does not let Hector get away from him: every time Hector tries to reach the Dardanian gates so that archers can help him from above, Achilles gets there first and pushes him back onto the plain. They do what one does in a dream, when one cannot flee and the other cannot catch up. The narrator says that Hector would not have escaped the Keres if Apollo had not given him strength in his knees for the last time, and that Achilles signals with his head to his men that no one should shoot arrows, so that no one else takes the glory and he arrives second. On the fourth circuit, beside the springs, Zeus stretches out the golden scales and places in the pans the two Keres, Achilles' and Hector's. Hector's day descends to Hades, and Apollo leaves him. Athena comes to Achilles and says that now the two of them will bring great glory to the ships, that Hector will not escape any longer even if Apollo strives, and that he should rest while she persuades Hector to fight.
Athena takes the form of Deiphobus, Hector's brother, with his voice, and proposes that the two stop and defend themselves together. Hector answers that Deiphobus was always the dearest of his brothers and that he now honors him even more, because Deiphobus had the courage to come out of the wall for his sake while the others stayed inside. The false Deiphobus says that father, mother, and companions begged him to stay, so great was the fear of all, but that his heart suffered grief; let them fight now without sparing spears, to see whether Achilles kills them and carries the spoils to the ships or is defeated by Hector's spear. When they draw near, Hector says he will not flee any longer, as he did during the three circuits, and that his spirit has ordered him to stand before Achilles: either he kills him or he dies. He proposes that the gods be witnesses to a pact: if Zeus gives him victory, he will not mistreat the body; he will only strip the armor and return the corpse to the Achaeans, and let Achilles do the same. Achilles looks at him with hatred and refuses any pact, comparing him to lions and men, or to wolves and lambs, who cannot come to agreement. He says Athena will soon subdue Hector with Achilles' own spear, and that Hector will pay at once for all the sorrows of the companions he killed.
Achilles hurls his spear, and Hector, seeing it come, ducks; it passes over him and sticks in the ground. Athena pulls it up and returns it to Achilles, without Hector noticing. Hector says that Achilles missed, that he did not know Hector's fate from Zeus, as he claimed, and that this was skill with words and cunning, meant to make Hector forget his courage out of fear. He will not drive the spear through Achilles' back but through his chest, if a god grants it, and the war will be lighter for the Trojans when Achilles dies, for he is their worst scourge. Hector then hurls his own spear, strikes the center of Achilles' shield, and it falls far off. Hector is dismayed, without another spear, and calls loudly for Deiphobus to bring one, but no one is near. Now he understands the truth: the gods have called him to death, Deiphobus is inside the wall, and Athena deceived him. Death is now close, and Zeus and Apollo, who once protected him, no longer do, and Moira reaches him. But he will not die without fight and without glory, and will do something great that those to come may learn of. He draws his sword and throws himself like an eagle that plunges from the clouds upon a lamb or a hare.
Achilles also advances, covering his chest with the beautiful shield and shaking the four-crested helmet with golden horsehair that Hephaestus made for him. He looks at Hector's body to see where the flesh yields most, and sees that the armor Hector wears, the armor he took from Patroclus, covers him entirely except where the collarbones separate the neck from the shoulders: the throat, where life is lost most quickly. There he drives the spear, which passes through the delicate neck but without cutting the windpipe, so that Hector can still speak. Hector falls in the dust, and Achilles boasts: Hector thought Patroclus was safe and did not fear him while he was far away, but Patroclus stayed by the ships, a far better helper, and loosened Hector's knees in death; dogs and birds will tear Hector apart, while the Achaeans bury Patroclus. Hector begs for his life, by his knees and by his parents, not to leave him to the dogs by the ships, and offers the bronze and gold that his father and mother will give, so that the body returns home and the Trojans and the Trojan wives give him the fire. Achilles calls him a dog and replies that no one will keep the dogs from his head, even if ten or twenty times the ransom were brought, even if Priam had his body weighed in gold, and that his mother will not mourn him on the bed. Hector, dying, answers that he expected this, for Achilles has an iron heart in his chest, and warns him that it will be a cause of the gods' wrath on the day Paris and Apollo destroy Achilles at the Scaean Gates. Death covers him, the soul flies to Hades lamenting its fate, and Achilles tells the dead man that he will accept his own Ker whenever Zeus and the other gods wish.
Achilles pulls the spear from the body and strips the bloodied armor. The other sons of the Achaeans run to admire the height and beauty of Hector, and none fails to wound him, saying that he is softer to the touch than when he set the ships on fire. Achilles proposes to the chiefs that they surround the city in arms, to see whether the Trojans abandon it now that Hector has fallen or choose to stay, and then he interrupts himself: Patroclus's unburied body lies by the ships, and he will not forget him as long as he lives, nor in Hades. He tells the Achaeans to return to the ships singing the paean, carrying Hector, for they have won great glory. He pierces the tendons of both of the dead man's feet, passes leather thongs of ox-hide through them, ties him to the chariot with his head dragging, climbs up, lifts the armor, and whips the horses, which fly willingly. From the dragged body the dust rises, the dark hair spreads, and the head, once beautiful, lies all in the dust, for Zeus then gives it to the enemies for dishonor, in Hector's own homeland.
Hector's mother tears out her hair and flings her shining veil away, and lets out a great cry at seeing her son; the father groans, and the people are seized with lament, as if all of high-towered Ilium were burning from above. The men can barely hold Priam, who wants to go out through the Dardanian gates. The old man rolls in the dung and calls each man by name, asking to be allowed to go alone to the ships to beg that violent and insolent man, to see whether he respects age and has pity on old age, since he too has a father, Peleus. Of the many sons Achilles has killed for him, he mourns most for one, Hector, and says he should have died in the arms of his parents. The people groan with him, and Hecuba asks her dead son what will become of her now, she who held him as her glory and her profit in the city, and saw him honored as a god.
Andromache does not yet know: no messenger has told her that her husband stayed outside the gates. She weaves in the back of the house a folded purple cloak, embroidering flowers, and orders the servants to set the great tripod on the fire so that Hector will have warm water when he returns from combat. She hears cries and laments from the tower, trembles, the shuttle falls from her hand, and she calls two servants to go and see. She fears that Achilles has cut Hector off from the road to the city and is chasing him across the plain, and that he has taken away the daring that made Hector never wait among men, but always go to the front. She leaves the palace like a madwoman, her heart leaping, and from the wall sees her husband dragged by the horses before the city. Night covers her eyes, and she falls backward, losing her breath, and flings away her headdress, veil, and net, the ones Aphrodite gave her on the day Hector took her from the house of Eetion with rich gifts. Her sisters-in-law and daughters-in-law surround her and hold her up. When she comes to herself, she laments among the Trojan women: the two were born under the same fate, he in Troy, she in Thebes, in the house of Eetion, who raised her; now he goes down to the house of Hades and leaves her a widow, and the son is still a small child. Hector will be no use to him, nor he to Hector: even if he escapes the war, others will take his fields, and the day of orphanhood leaves a child without companions. He goes, head down, face wet, pulling at the cloak of one and the robe of another; one of them, out of pity, holds out a cup for a moment, moistens his lips but not his palate, and a boy with living parents drives him away from the table with blows and insults. She returns to what remains: the fine robes the women wove lie in the house, and she will burn them all, of no use to the dead man, but so that there may be glory for him among the Trojan men and women. The women groan with her.
Analysis
The book shows Hector dying for two reasons that do not contradict each other. The reason the text gives in his own speeches is shame: he does not go in, because he would raise Polydamas and the Trojans against himself, and that is why he comes out from behind the wall. The reason the text gives in the speeches of the gods is Moira, weighed on Zeus's scales. The poem does not let one cancel the other: Hector chooses to stay, and the scale already had its result. Even Athena's deception is read in two ways: she diverts him from flight, but only because he, now alone, accepts believing that someone is beside him.
The book has three supplication scenes in a row, and all three say the same thing in different ways. The parents beg Hector to come in; Hector begs Achilles to return the body; Priam, at the end, wants to beg Achilles, and the people hold him back. In all of them, what is asked is that Hector's body not go to the dogs. Achilles' refusal is not against a request; it is against the rite: he denies Hector fire and lament, the two gestures the poem uses to measure a human death. Andromache's closing, in which she burns the robes because the body will not wear them, returns to Hector what Achilles denies him, in cloth and in fire.
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