Homer · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
So the Trojans, driven in panic through the city like fawns, cooled the sweat on their bodies and drank to slake their thirst, leaning against the fair battlements, while the Achaeans came up close under the wall, shields slung against their shoulders. But deadly fate bound Hector to stay where he was, in front of Troy, before the Scaean Gates.
Then Phoebus Apollo spoke to the son of Peleus: "Why do you chase me, son of Peleus, with your swift feet — you a mortal, chasing a god who cannot die? You still haven't recognized that I am a god, so relentlessly you rage."
Deeply troubled, swift-footed Achilles answered him: "You have cheated me, Apollo, most destructive of all the gods, turning me aside here, away from the wall. Many more would have bitten the dust before ever reaching Troy. Now you have robbed me of great glory and saved them without a thought, since you had nothing to fear in payment. I would pay you back, if only the power were mine."
With that he strode toward the city, his heart set high, surging forward like a champion chariot-horse that runs easily at full stretch across the plain. So Achilles worked his swift feet and knees.
Old Priam was the first to catch sight of him with his own eyes, blazing across the plain like the star that rises in autumn, its rays clear and bright among the many stars of the deep night — the one men call the Dog of Orion. It is the brightest of all, but it is set as a sign of evil, and it brings much fever to wretched mortals. So the bronze on Achilles' chest shone as he ran.
The old man groaned aloud and beat his head with his hands, raising them high, and cried out in loud lament, begging his own son — who stood before the gates, immovable, burning to fight Achilles.
Stretching out his hands, the old man spoke to him in pity: "Hector, my child, do not wait for this man alone, cut off from the others, or you will quickly meet your doom, brought down by the son of Peleus, since he is far stronger than you — pitiless as he is. I wish the gods loved him no more than they love me! Then dogs and vultures would soon eat him where he lay, and the terrible grief would lift from my heart. He has robbed me of many brave sons, killing them or selling them off to islands far away. Even now I cannot see two of my sons among the Trojans crowded into the city — Lycaon and Polydorus, whom Laothoe, queen among women, bore to me. If they are still alive in the camp, we will ransom them yet with bronze and gold, for there is plenty stored within, since old, famous Altes gave much to his daughter as her dowry. But if they are already dead and in the house of Hades, then it is a grief to me and to their mother who bore them; for the rest of the people the grief will be shorter-lived, unless you too are killed, brought down by Achilles. Come inside the wall, my child, so that you may save the men and women of Troy, and not hand great glory to the son of Peleus while you yourself are robbed of your own life. And have pity on me too, wretched as I am, while I still have my senses — a broken old man, whom Father Zeus will destroy by a hard fate on the threshold of old age, after watching every kind of horror: sons slaughtered, daughters dragged away, bedchambers ransacked, little children hurled to the ground in the terrible carnage, and my sons' wives dragged off by the merciless hands of the Achaeans. And I myself, last of all, will be torn apart at my own front door by ravening dogs, once someone has stabbed or struck the life out of my limbs with sharp bronze — the very dogs I raised in my halls to guard my table and my doors, who will then drink my blood, and lie in my gateway, their hearts gone wild. For a young man, everything is fitting when he lies mangled by the sharp bronze after battle — cut to pieces, he lies there, and whatever men see is honorable in death. But when dogs defile the grey head and grey beard and the nakedness of an old man who has been killed — that is the most pitiful thing that comes to suffering mortals."
So spoke the old man, tearing the white hair from his head with his hands. But he did not sway Hector's heart.
On the other side his mother wailed, shedding tears, loosening her robe and holding out her breast with the other hand. Weeping, she spoke winged words to him: "Hector, my child, respect this, and pity me — if ever I gave you this breast to soothe your cares. Remember it, dear child, and drive off this deadly man from inside the wall — do not stand and face him in the open. Pitiless as he is — if he kills you, I will never lay you on a bier and weep for you, dear branch I bore myself, nor will your richly-dowered wife; but far away from us both, the swift dogs will devour you by the ships of the Argives."
So the two of them, weeping, pleaded with their own son, begging him again and again. But they did not sway Hector's heart, and he stood his ground waiting for Achilles, monstrous in size, as he came closer.
As a mountain serpent at its den awaits a man, having fed on poisonous herbs, and a terrible fury has entered it, and it looks about with a dreadful glare, coiled at its lair — so Hector, his fury unquenched, would not give ground, but leaned his bright shield against a jutting tower.
Deeply troubled, he spoke to his own great heart: "This is grim. If I go in through the gates and the wall, Polydamas will be the first to heap shame on me, since he urged me to lead the Trojans back into the city on that fatal night when godlike Achilles rose to fight. But I would not listen — and how much better it would have been if I had. Now that I have destroyed my army through my own recklessness, I feel shame before the men and women of Troy, in case someone lesser than I says, 'Hector trusted his own strength and destroyed his people.' That is what they will say. So it would be far better for me now to face Achilles and either kill him and come home, or die gloriously myself before the city. But if I set down my bossed shield and my heavy helmet, and lean my spear against the wall, and go myself to meet blameless Achilles face to face, and promise him that we will give back Helen and all her possessions with her — everything Paris brought to Troy in his hollow ships, which was the beginning of this quarrel — to be led away to the sons of Atreus, and besides that divide with the Achaeans everything else the city holds; and if I take an oath from the Trojan elders afterward that they will hide nothing but will divide fairly all the wealth this lovely city contains within it — but why does my heart debate this with me? I must not go to him and have him show no mercy and no respect for me at all, but kill me unarmed, like a woman, once I have stripped off my armor. This is no time to chatter with him from oak tree or from rock, the way a young man and a young woman murmur to one another. Better to clash in combat as soon as we can, and see to which of us the Olympian grants the victory."
So he pondered, standing his ground, while Achilles came near him, like Enyalius, the warrior of the flashing helm, brandishing over his right shoulder the terrible Pelian ash spear, and the bronze around him flashed like blazing fire or the rising sun.
When Hector saw him, trembling seized him; he could not bear to stay there any longer, but left the gates behind him and ran, terrified. And the son of Peleus surged after him, trusting to his swift feet.
As a hawk in the mountains, swiftest of winged things, swoops easily after a trembling dove — she darts away beneath him in terror, but he, screaming shrilly, keeps close and strikes at her again and again, his heart driving him to seize her — so Achilles flew straight on in fury, and Hector fled in terror beneath the wall of Troy, working his swift knees.
They ran past the lookout point and the windswept fig tree, always along the wagon-track under the wall, and came to the two fair-flowing springs where the two fountains of swirling Scamander rise. One flows with warm water, and steam rises from it all around as if from a blazing fire; the other, even in summer, runs cold as hail, or as snow, or as ice formed from water. There, close beside them, are wide washing-troughs, fine ones, built of stone, where the wives and lovely daughters of Troy used to wash their bright clothing, in the old days of peace, before the sons of the Achaeans came. Past these they ran, one fleeing, the other chasing behind him. In front a good man fled, but a far better one pursued him swiftly, since it was not some sacrificial beast or oxhide they were racing for — the usual prizes for men's swiftness of foot — but they were running for the life of Hector, breaker of horses.
As when prize-winning horses run hard around the turning-post, sweeping wide, and a great prize awaits them — a tripod, or a woman — in honor of a dead man, so the two of them circled three times around the city of Priam at full speed. All the gods were watching.
And the father of gods and men spoke first among them: "Look — this is a man I love, whom I watch being chased around the wall before my own eyes, and my heart grieves for Hector, who has burned for me many thighs of oxen, on the peaks of many-folded Ida, and other times on the city's height. Now noble Achilles chases him with swift feet around the city of Priam. Come now, gods, think this over and decide together — whether we should save him from death, or now, at last, let him be brought down by Achilles, son of Peleus, good man though he is."
Then the goddess grey-eyed Athena answered him: "Father of the bright bolt, lord of the dark cloud, what have you said? Do you truly wish to snatch back from harsh death a mortal man, one long ago marked out by fate? Do it, then — but the rest of us gods do not approve."
Cloud-gathering Zeus answered her and said: "Take heart, Tritogeneia, dear child — I did not speak in earnest, and I wish to be kind to you. Do as your mind pleases, and hold back no longer."
So he spoke, urging on Athena, who was already eager, and she went darting down from the peaks of Olympus.
And swift Achilles kept driving Hector on relentlessly, harrying him. As when a hound in the mountains starts a fawn from its lair and chases it through glens and hollows — and even if the fawn crouches and hides beneath a thicket, the hound keeps tracking it, running steadily until it finds it — so Hector could not escape the notice of swift-footed Achilles. Every time he tried to dash toward the Dardanian Gates, toward the strong-built towers, hoping that men above might help him with their weapons, that many times Achilles would head him off and turn him back toward the plain, while he himself always flew along on the side toward the city. As in a dream, when a man cannot catch another who flees before him — the one cannot escape, nor the other overtake — so Achilles could not catch Hector by running, nor could Hector get away.
And how could Hector have escaped the fates of death, if Apollo had not come to him one last, final time, close beside him, rousing his strength and the swiftness of his knees? And noble Achilles shook his head at his own men, not allowing them to hurl their bitter weapons at Hector, in case someone else won the glory by hitting him, and he himself came only second.
But when they reached the springs for the fourth time, then the Father held up his golden scales, and set on them two fates of death that lays men low — one for Achilles, one for Hector, breaker of horses — and he took the balance by the middle and raised it. Down sank the day of doom for Hector, down toward Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him.
Then the goddess grey-eyed Athena came to the son of Peleus, and standing close beside him she spoke winged words: "Now at last, glorious Achilles, dear to Zeus, I think the two of us will carry off great glory for the Achaeans by their ships, once we have brought down Hector, insatiable as he is for battle. He can no longer escape us now, not even if Apollo the far-worker should suffer greatly, groveling before father Zeus who bears the aegis. But you — stand still now and catch your breath, while I go to him and persuade him to stand and fight you face to face."
So spoke Athena, and Achilles obeyed her, glad at heart, and stood still, leaning on his bronze-tipped ashen spear.
She left him there and went after godlike Hector, taking the shape and the tireless voice of Deiphobus. Standing close beside him, she spoke winged words: "Dear brother, truly swift Achilles is pressing you hard, chasing you around the city of Priam with his swift feet. Come, let us make a stand and beat him back."
Then great Hector of the flashing helm answered her: "Deiphobus, you were always by far the dearest of my brothers, of all the sons that Hecabe and Priam bore — but now I honor you even more in my heart, since you have dared, for my sake, to come outside the wall when you saw me, while the others all stay within."
Then the goddess grey-eyed Athena answered him: "Dear brother, truly our father and honored mother begged me hard, one after another, embracing my knees, and my comrades too, to stay inside — such terror grips them all. But my heart within was worn down with bitter grief. Now let us go straight at him and fight with all our might, and spare no spears, so that we may find out whether Achilles will kill the two of us and carry our bloodied spoils to the hollow ships, or whether he will fall to your spear."
So speaking, Athena led him on with cunning treachery. And when the two men had come close, advancing on each other, great Hector of the flashing helm spoke first: "I will not run from you any longer, son of Peleus, as I did before, three times around the great city of Priam, not daring to stand and face you coming on. Now my heart urges me to stand against you — let me kill or be killed. But come, let us call the gods here to witness, for they will be the best witnesses and guardians of any pact: I will not mistreat you cruelly, if Zeus grants me the staying power and I take your life; but once I have stripped your famous armor, Achilles, I will give your body back to the Achaeans. Do the same for me."
But swift-footed Achilles looked at him darkly and answered: "Hector, do not speak to me of pacts, you who I can never forgive. As there are no oaths of trust between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no meeting of hearts but plot evil against each other without end, so there can be no love between you and me, and there will be no oaths between us, until one or the other of us has fallen and glutted Ares, the tireless warrior, with his blood. Call to mind now every kind of courage you possess. Now above all you must be a spearman and a fearless fighter. There is no escape for you any longer — very soon Pallas Athena will bring you down beneath my spear. Now you will pay all at once for the griefs of my comrades, whom you killed in your spear's fury."
With that he balanced his long-shadowed spear and hurled it. Watching it come, shining Hector dodged it — he had seen it coming and crouched down, and the bronze spear flew over him and stuck fast in the ground. But Pallas Athena snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles, unseen by Hector, shepherd of his people.
Then Hector spoke to the blameless son of Peleus: "You missed — so you did not, after all, godlike Achilles, learn my fate from Zeus, as you claimed. You were only a smooth talker, a clever speaker of words, hoping that in fear of you I would forget my strength and courage. You will not plant your spear in my back as I run — drive it through my chest instead, straight on, if the god has granted you that. But now avoid my bronze spear in turn — how I wish you would take the whole of it into your body! The war would be lighter for the Trojans then, with you dead, since you are their greatest torment."
With that he balanced his long-shadowed spear and hurled it, and struck the middle of the shield of the son of Peleus, missing nothing — but the spear bounced far off the shield. Hector was furious that the swift weapon had flown from his hand in vain, and he stood there downcast, for he had no second ashen spear. He shouted loudly, calling for Deiphobus of the white shield, and asked him for a long spear — but Deiphobus was nowhere near him.
And Hector understood in his heart, and said: "No — the gods are truly calling me to my death. I thought the warrior Deiphobus was beside me, but he is inside the wall, and Athena has deceived me. Now evil death is close to me indeed, no longer far away, and there is no escape."
"No — you were always a smooth-tongued liar, a thief with words, hoping that fear of you would make me forget my strength and my courage. You will not plant your spear in my back as I run — drive it through my chest instead, straight on, if a god has granted you that. But now, dodge this — my bronze spear. I pray your whole body may swallow it. The war would go easier for the Trojans if you were dead — you are their greatest torment."
So he spoke, and balancing his long-shadowed spear he hurled it, and struck Achilles' shield full in the center — he did not miss. But the spear bounced far off the shield, and Hector was furious that his swift throw had flown from his hand for nothing. He stood there stricken, for he had no other ash spear to throw. He shouted loudly for Deiphobus of the white shield, and asked him for a long spear — but Deiphobus was nowhere near him. Then Hector understood in his heart, and said:
"No use — the gods are truly calling me to my death. I thought the warrior Deiphobus was beside me, but he is behind the wall, and Athena has tricked me. Now evil death is close to me, and no longer far away, and there is no escaping it. This must have long been the pleasure of Zeus and his son the archer god, though before now they were eager to protect me. Now my fate has found me. Still, let me not die without a struggle, without glory, but doing some great deed that men to come will hear of."
So he spoke, and drew the sharp sword that hung at his side, huge and heavy, and gathering himself he swooped like a high-flying eagle that plunges down to the plain through the dark clouds to snatch a soft lamb or a cowering hare —
so Hector swooped, brandishing his sharp sword. And Achilles charged too, his heart filled with a wild fury. In front of his chest he held his shield, beautiful and intricately worked, and on his head his bright four-plated helmet nodded, and the golden crest-plumes that Hephaestus had set thick around its ridge streamed about him. Like the star that moves among the other stars in the dead of night, the evening star, the most beautiful star that stands in the sky — so the light flashed from the fine point of the spear that Achilles balanced in his right hand, with murder in his heart for godlike Hector,
searching his beautiful body for the place where it would yield most easily. Everywhere else his skin was covered by the fine bronze armor he had stripped from mighty Patroclus when he killed him, but there was a gap where the collarbones divide the neck from the shoulders, at the throat, where the life is quickest to be destroyed. There, as Hector charged, godlike Achilles drove his spear, and the point went straight through the soft neck. Yet the heavy bronze-weighted ash spear did not cut through the windpipe, so that Hector could still speak, could still answer him with words. He fell in the dust, and godlike Achilles exulted over him:
"Hector, when you were stripping Patroclus you must have thought you would be safe — you gave no thought to me, since I was far away. Fool. Far behind him there was an avenger, far better than he, and I was left behind at the hollow ships — I am the one who has loosened your knees. Now the dogs and birds will drag you and tear you shamefully, while the Achaeans give him a proper burial."
And Hector, his strength failing, said to him:
"I beg you, by your life, by your knees, by your parents — do not let the dogs devour me by the ships of the Achaeans. Take instead all the bronze and gold you wish, gifts that my father and my honored mother will give you, and send my body home again, so that the Trojans and the wives of the Trojans may give me my due of fire when I am dead."
Looking at him darkly, swift-footed Achilles answered:
"Beg me no beggings, dog, by my knees or by my parents. I only wish my fury and my heart could drive me to carve your flesh and eat it raw myself, for what you have done to me. No one exists who could keep the dogs off your head — not if they brought me ransom ten times over, twenty times over, and weighed it out right here, and promised still more —
not even if Priam son of Dardanus ordered your weight paid out in gold. Not even then will your honored mother lay you on a bed and mourn the son she bore. No — the dogs and the birds will tear you apart, all of you."
And dying, Hector of the flashing helmet said to him:
"I know you well, I see what you are, and I see now — I never had a hope of moving you. Truly the heart in your chest is iron. But think of this: I may become the cause of the gods' anger against you, on the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo destroy you, brave as you are, at the Scaean Gates."
Even as he spoke, the end that is death closed over him, and his soul flew from his limbs down to the house of Hades, mourning its fate, leaving behind youth and manhood. And godlike Achilles spoke to him, though he was dead now:
"Die. As for my own death, I will accept it whenever Zeus wishes to bring it about, and the other immortal gods."
So he spoke, and pulled his bronze spear from the corpse, and set it aside, and began to strip the bloodied armor from Hector's shoulders. The rest of the sons of the Achaeans came running up, and they too gazed in wonder at the build and the astonishing beauty of Hector, and none of them came near him without driving a blow into him. And glancing at the man beside him, one would say:
"Look now — Hector is far softer to handle than he was when he was setting our ships on fire."
So each man would say, and step up and stab the body. And when swift-footed godlike Achilles had finished stripping him, he stood among the Achaeans and spoke winged words:
"Friends, leaders and rulers of the Argives, since the gods have let us bring down this man, who did more harm than all the rest of them put together —
come, let us go in arms around the city and test them, to learn what the Trojans mean to do now — whether they will abandon the high city now that this man has fallen, or whether they still mean to hold out, even with Hector gone. But why does my heart turn over these thoughts? There by the ships lies a corpse unwept, unburied — Patroclus. I will not forget him as long as I remain among the living and my knees still carry me. Even if the dead forget one another in the house of Hades, even there I will remember my dear companion.
Now, young men of the Achaeans, let us go back to the hollow ships, singing the victory hymn, and bring this man with us. We have won ourselves great glory — we have killed godlike Hector, whom the Trojans in their city honored like a god."
So he spoke, and thought of a shameful deed to do to godlike Hector. He cut through the sinews of both feet, behind, from heel to ankle, and drove ox-hide straps through them, and bound him to his chariot, letting the head drag. Then he mounted the chariot, and lifting up the famous armor, whipped the horses on, and they flew on eagerly.
As Hector was dragged, the dust rose around him, and his dark hair spread out on either side, and his head, once so handsome, lay in the dirt — for now Zeus had given him over to his enemies, to be disgraced in his own native land. So his whole head was fouled with dust. And now his mother tore her hair, and flung her shining veil far from her, and cried out in a great wail at the sight of her son. His dear father groaned pitifully, and all around him the people were seized with wailing and lament throughout the city — it was as if all
steep Troy itself were being burned to ashes from its heights. The people could barely restrain the old man, frantic with grief, from rushing out through the Dardanian gates. He begged them all, rolling in the filth, calling out to each man by name:
"Let me go, friends — much as you care for me, let me alone, let me go out of the city and reach the ships of the Achaeans. Let me beg this man, this reckless doer of monstrous deeds — perhaps he will respect my age, and take pity on my gray hairs. He too has a father like me,
Peleus, who fathered him and raised him to become a curse to the Trojans — but to me most of all, above everyone, he has brought grief. So many of my sons in their prime he has killed! And for all of them together I do not grieve as much, sharp as that grief is, as I grieve for this one — for Hector — whose loss will carry me down to the house of Hades in sorrow. If only he had died in my arms! Then we might have wept our fill of him and mourned him, his mother, who bore him to her sorrow, and I myself."
So he spoke, weeping, and the citizens groaned along with him. And among the Trojan women Hecuba led the passionate lament:
"My child, wretched as I am — how shall I go on living now, in my terrible suffering, now that you are dead? You were my pride night and day throughout the city, and a blessing to all — to the men and women of Troy alike, who honored you like a god. For truly you were their great glory while you lived. But now death and fate have found you."
So she spoke, weeping. But Hector's wife had not yet heard anything — no true messenger had come to tell her that her husband remained outside the gates. She was weaving a web in the depths of the high house,
a double purple cloth, and working intricate flowers into it. She had called to her fair-haired maids throughout the house to set a great tripod over the fire, so that there would be a warm bath ready for Hector when he came home from the fighting — poor woman, she did not know that, far from any bath, gray-eyed Athena had brought him down at the hands of Achilles. She heard the sound of wailing and lament from the tower, and her limbs shook, and the shuttle fell from her hands to the ground, and she spoke again to her fair-haired serving women:
"Come, two of you follow me — let me see what has happened.
I heard the voice of my honored mother-in-law, and now my own heart is pounding up in my throat, and my knees are frozen beneath me — something terrible is close at hand for the children of Priam. I pray this news may never reach my ears — but I am dreadfully afraid that godlike Achilles may have cut brave Hector off alone from the city and driven him onto the plain, and put an end at last to that reckless courage of his that always drove him — for he never held back among the crowd of men, but always ran out far ahead, giving way to no one in his fury."
So she spoke, and rushed through the hall like a woman gone mad,
her heart pounding, and her maids went with her. But when she reached the tower and the crowd of men, she stopped and looked around from the wall, and saw him
being dragged in front of the city — the swift horses were dragging him without mercy toward the hollow ships of the Achaeans. Darkness like night fell over her eyes, and she collapsed backward, and her spirit fled from her. Far from her head she flung the shining headbands, the diadem and net and woven band, and the veil that golden Aphrodite had given her
on the day when Hector of the flashing helmet led her from the house of Eetion, after he had paid a bride-price beyond counting. Around her stood her husband's sisters and his brothers' wives in a crowd, holding her up among them, for she was out of her senses, near to death. But when she caught her breath again and her spirit gathered back into her chest, she cried out among the Trojan women, sobbing in bursts:
"Hector — wretched as I am! We were born, it seems, to the same fate, both of us — you in Troy, in the house of Priam, and I in Thebe, under wooded Placus,
in the house of Eetion, who raised me when I was small — unlucky father of an unlucky daughter — how I wish he had never fathered me. Now you go down to the house of Hades, beneath the hidden places of the earth, and you leave me behind in hateful grief, a widow in your halls. And our son is still only a baby, the child we bore, you and I, doomed as we both are. You will be no help to him now that you are dead, Hector, nor he to you. Even if he escapes this war that costs the Achaeans so many tears, still there will always be hardship and grief in store for him afterward, for other men will seize his lands. The day that orphans a child cuts him off from all his friends —
he goes about with his head bowed, his cheeks wet with tears, and in his need he comes up to his father's companions, tugging at one man's cloak, another man's tunic, and those who pity him may hold out a cup for a moment — enough to wet his lips, but not enough to wet the roof of his mouth. And a boy who still has both his parents will drive him from the feast, striking him with his hands and taunting him with insults: 'Get out — your father does not eat with us.' And the boy will go crying back to his widowed mother — Astyanax, who used to sit on his father's knees
and eat nothing but marrow and the rich fat of sheep. And whenever sleep took him, and he had had enough of his childish play, he would sleep in a bed, in the arms of his nurse, on a soft couch, his heart filled with good things. But now that he has lost his dear father, he will suffer greatly — Astyanax, as the Trojans call him, because you alone guarded their gates and their long walls. And now, by the curved ships, far from your parents, the squirming worms will eat you, once the dogs have had their fill of your naked body — though fine clothes lie ready for you in your house,
delicate, beautiful, made by the hands of women. But I will burn all of these now in the blazing fire — they can do you no good, since you will never lie in them — but let it be an honor paid to you before the Trojans and the women of Troy."
So she spoke, weeping, and the women groaned along with her.