Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  But the Achaeans shouldered their shields and thronged toward the wall. Of all the Trojans, only Hector had remained outside the Scaean Gates, for this was appointed by Fate. Achilles was still pursuing Apollo whom he took for Agenor, until suddenly the god halted, turned, and said in his divine voice: “Why do you dog me so stubbornly, son of Peleus, and allow me to make you forget to go after the Trojans? You thought you were chasing a mortal, but you are running after a god whom you can never slay.”

  At that the scales fell from the eyes of Achilles; he was vexed and cried: “Cruel and tricking god! So you have lured me away from the wall! Had it not been for you, many a man would have bitten the dust before the Trojans entered Ilium. But you stole conquest from me and saved them without any danger to their ranks, for you are immortal and need have no fear of vengeance, much as I should like to avenge myself for what you have done tome!”

  And Achilles faced about and flew toward the city like an impetuous chariot horse accustomed to victory. The first to see him was aged Priam who had again ascended his lookout in the tower, and he saw him blaze forth just as the Dog Star, bringing draught, glitters in the night sky, foretelling a poor harvest to the farmer. The old man beat his breast with his hands and called sorrowfully down to his son who was standing outside the Scaean Gates, waiting for the son of Peleus: “Hector, will you recklessly deliver yourself into the very hands of this murderer who has already robbed me of so many of my children? Come into the city and defend the men and women of Troy! Do not increase the glory of Achilles by letting him add your death to the tale of his numberless victims. Have pity on me, your old father, while I still breathe, for Zeus has condemned me to loiter long on the uttermost rim of old age and to suffer intolerable grief. Must I see my sons slain, my daughters torn from me and made captive, the halls of my palace plundered, young children hurled to the ground, the wives of my sons carried off? In the end I too will be laid low by a spear or a lance, laid low at the very door of my palace, and the very dogs I have reared will mangle my flesh and lap my blood.”

  So the old man called from the tower and tore his white hair. Hecuba appeared at his side, and she too wept and cried: “Hector, remember that I fed you at my breast. Have pity on me! Drive off that dread hero from behind the wall, but do not meet him in front of the gates, for that would be madness!”

  But neither the tears nor the entreaties of his parents could turn Hector from his purpose. Motionlessly he waited for Achilles and said to himself: “There was a time when I ought to have retreated. That was when my friend Polydamas advised me to take the Trojan army back into Ilium. Now that so many are slain because of my rashness, I fear the men and the women of Troy will some day say of me: ‘Hector trusted his strength and in so doing delivered up his people!’ Better that I win or die in fighting terrible Achilles. Or should I put my shield and helmet down on the ground, lean my spear against the wall, meet him unarmed, and offer to him Helen, all the treasure Paris took with her, and rich stores of gifts besides? What if I made the princes of Troy swear to keep nothing back, to divide our treasures and other possessions into two equal parts? But what thoughts are these! I, supplicate him? He would strike me down mercilessly! And how would it look if I went up to him and spoke sweet words, like a youth to a maiden? Better rush toward each other in battle, for soon we shall see to which of us two the Olympians will grant the victory.” Such were the thoughts which passed through Hector’s mind.

  THE DEATH OF HECTOR

  Nearer and nearer came Achilles, awful and splendid as Ares himself. On his right shoulder quivered his lance with the shaft of ash, and his brazen weapons blazed about him like the rising sun. When Hector saw him, he trembled against his will and turned toward the gate. But after him flew the son of Peleus, even as the hawk swoops on the dove which tries to slip to this side and that, but the bird of prey darts straight in ruthless pursuit. So Hector ran along the walls of Troy, along the wagon track and past the two bubbling springs of the Scamander, the warm and the cold, and on and on. A strong man fled, but a stronger followed. In this way they circled the city of Priam three times, and from Olympus the gods watched the spectacle with anxious hearts. “Weigh this well, O gods!” said Zeus. “The hour of decision has come. Shall Hector, who brought us so many sacrifices, escape death once more, or fall, brave though he be?”

  And Pallas Athene answered: “Father, what are you saying? Would you redeem from death a mortal whom Fate has doomed long since? Do as you think best, but you must not expect the gods to approve.”

  Zeus nodded to his daughter in token of his willingness to let her follow her own counsel, and like a bird she flew down to the battlefield from the rocky heights of Olympus.

  There Hector was still fleeing from his pursuer who gained on him like a hound on the deer he has startled from its hiding place and which he allows neither rest nor escape. And as he ran so fleetly, Achilles signed to his men that no one was to aim a missile at Hector, for he wanted the glory of being the first and the only one to slay the most dreaded enemy of the Argives.

  When for the fourth time they had circled the walls and reached the springs of the Scamander, Zeus rose on Olympus, held out his golden scales, and placed in them two death lots, one for the son of Peleus and one for Hector. Then he held the scales in the middle and weighed. Hector’s lot sank low toward Hades, and instantly Phoebus Apollo left him. But to Achilles came Pallas Athene and whispered: “Stand and compose yourself while I go to persuade your enemy to take courage and face you in fight.” Obedient to the goddess, Achilles halted and leaned on his ashen spear, while she, assuming the shape of Deiphobus, approached Hector and said: “Ah! elder brother of mine, how relentlessly the son of Peleus besets you! Come, let us make a stand and beat him off.”

  Hector rejoiced at sight of his brother and answered: “I always loved you better than my other brothers, Deiphobus. But now that you have ventured out of the city to goad me on while the rest sit behind the walls, I honor and cherish you still more.” And Deiphobus, who was Athene, led Hector on to where Achilles was resting, and she went before, raising her lance.

  Hector was the first to speak. “I shall not flee from you any longer, son of Peleus,” he said. “My heart urges me to confront you and fight until I slay you or am slain myself. But let us swear an oath before the gods: if Zeus grants me the victory, I shall not abuse you after death, but after I have stripped you of your armor I shall give your body back to your people. And you shall do likewise.”

  “I make no covenants!” Achilles replied sullenly. “As little as lions can make friends of men, as little as lambs and wolves can live peaceably together, just as little can there be friendship between us two. One of us shall sink bleeding to the ground. Muster what skill you have. You may cast the spear and fence with the sword. But you shall not escape me. For now you shall atone for all the grief you have brought my warriors with your weapons.” So saying, Achilles hurled his lance. But Hector bent his knees, and the missile flew over him and into the earth. Athene took hold of it, drew it out, and returned it to Achilles, unseen by Hector. And now Hector poised his lance and cast angrily. It struck the shield of Achilles but rebounded from the bronze. Then Hector, in despair, looked back for his brother Deiphobus, for he had no other lance, but Deiphobus was gone. And suddenly Hector knew that Athene had tricked him and that his last hour had come. Unwilling to sink into the dust ingloriously, he drew his mighty sword from the sheath at his hip and, swinging it in his right hand, rushed forward as an eagle swoops on a lamb or a hare flattened against the earth. The son of Peleus did not wait for the thrust. He too swung forward, covering himself with his shield. The plumes on his helmet fluttered, and the spear he brandished in his right hand was bright as a star. Carefully he studied Hector to find a place where he could deal him a wound. From head to foot he was protected with the shining armor he had taken from Patroclus. There was only one small opening where shoulder and neck join at the collarbone. Achilles aimed carefully at th
is vulnerable part of his throat and pierced it with such violence that the point came out at the back of his neck. But the spear had not cut the windpipe, so that Hector could still speak, even though he had fallen, while Achilles jubilantly proclaimed that he would leave his body for dogs and birds to devour. At that Hector pleaded with him, though his breath grew fainter and fainter: “By your life, Achilles, I implore you! By your knees, by your parents—do not let the dogs mangle my flesh by the ships of the Argives! Take bronze and gold, as much as you want, but send my body to Troy, that the men and women of Priam’s city may heap a pyre for me with due rites!”

  But Achilles scowled, shook his head, and replied: “Do not entreat me by my knees and my parents, you who have murdered my friend! No one shall drive the dogs from your flesh, not if your countrymen pledged me twentyfold ransom, not if Priam gave me your own weight in gold.”

  “I know you,” Hector moaned, dying. “I knew that you would be implacable. Your heart is of iron. But you will remember my words when the gods avenge me, when at the high Scaean Gates you fall from the deadly shaft directed by Phoebus Apollo, when you sink into the dust, even as I.” As the last prophetic word left his lips, the soul of Hector departed from his body and winged its way down to Hades.

  But Achilles shouted after it: “Die! My fate shall befall me when Zeus and the other gods decree!” So saying, he drew the spear from the body, laid it aside, and stripped slain Hector of his bloodstained armor.

  And now from the Argive host many warriors came out and admired the stature and face of Hector and how goodly were his limbs, and many a one touched him and said: “Strange, how much gentler he is now than when he hurled the firebrand into our ships!”

  Then Achilles stood up among the Achaeans and said: “Friends and heroes! Now that the gods have permitted me to vanquish this man who did us more harm than all the others put together, let us approach the city and try to discover whether they will surrender the citadel, or dare to offer resistance even without Hector. But why do I waste time in talking? Does not my friend Patroclus still lie unburied by the ships? Let us sing the song of victory and bring my friend the victim I have slain to avenge his death.”

  With these words, Achilles again bent down to Hector’s body, pierced the tendons of both feet between ankle and heel, threaded thongs of oxhide through the opening, and made them fast to his chariot. Then he leaped in and goaded his horses toward the ships, letting the corpse trail on the ground. Clouds of dust rose about the dragged body, and the head, which only a little before had been so fair, drew a furrow through the sand, and the hair was matted and soiled. Looking down from the wall, Hecuba beheld her son and ore off her shining veil. King Priam too wept and made lament, and the city resounded with the cries and moans of the Trojans and their allies. In his anger and grief the old king could scarcely be restrained from rushing out of the Scaean Gates in pursuit of the slayer of his son. He threw himself on the ground and cried: “Hector, Hector! I forget all my other sons whom the enemy has killed in my sorrow for you. Oh, had you but died in my arms!”

  Andromache, Hector’s wife, knew nothing of all this, for no messenger had come to her, and she thought her husband was still within the walls of Troy. Serenely she sat in her chamber and embroidered stuff of Tyrian purple in bright colors. She had just bidden one of her handmaids set a great tripod on the fire to prepare a warm bath for Hector’s return, when she heard moans and wails from the tower. Her heart full of dark forebodings, she cried: “Alas! I fear that Achilles has cut my husband off from his men, for Hector is so brave that he always rushes ahead of all the rest.” Her heart beating painfully, she ran through the palace, climbed to the tower, and, looking down over the wall, saw the horses of the son of Peleus dragging her husband’s body, bound to the victor’s chariot, over the plain. Andromache fainted, and her kinswomen caught her in their arms. From her head fell her precious array, the frontlet and band and the veil Aphrodite had given her on her wedding day. When she regained consciousness, she sobbed and cried in broken tones: “Hector! Hector! You, ill-fated as I, both of us born to sorrow! Lonely and sad shall I sit in my house, a widow with a little son who has no father, who grows up with lowered eyes, his lashes wet with tears. He will have to beg among his father’s friends and pull this one and that one by the cloak, that he may give him food and drink. And sometimes a child whose parents are both living will thrust him from the board, saying: ‘Go away! Your father is not at the feast!’ And then he will weep and seek refuge with his mother who has no husband. For the dogs will devour Hector and the worms take what is left. Of what use now are the fine and splendid tunics stored in my chests? I shall burn them, for never again will they adorn my husband.” So she said weeping, and her women joined in her lament.

  THE FUNERAL OF PATROCLUS

  As soon as Achilles reached the ships with the corpse of his foe, he laid the body, face downward, in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The Danai, meanwhile, put off their armor and, by the thousands, sat down to the funeral feast. Oxen were slaughtered, and sheep, and boars, and the son of Peleus had rich and ample fare prepared for the warriors. Only reluctantly did he allow his friends to take him from the bier of his friend and lead him to the house of Agamemnon. Here a great cauldron of water was set over the fire, and they tried to persuade Achilles to wash the blood and sweat of battle from his limbs. But he stubbornly refused and swore a mighty oath: “No, by Zeus on Olympus! Water shall not touch me before I have laid Patroclus on the pyre, shaved my head, and heaped him a monument. Now the funeral feast shall be held. But tomorrow, Prince Agamemnon, let trees be cut in the forest and everything brought which is needed, that the fire may swiftly take from us the mournful sight of my friend. After that, the men may again turn to war.” The princes let him do as he wished and sat down to the meal. Then each went to his own house. But the son of Peleus, surrounded by his Myrmidons, lay down on the shore of the sea, where the waves had washed it clean.

  Long on the stony strand he sighed for his friend who was slain. When at last he fell asleep, the soul of Patroclus came to him in a dream. It resembled Patroclus in stature and voice and eyes, and the tunic it wore was like his. The form leaned over him and said, “Are you asleep? Have you already forgotten me, Achilles? You always loved the living, but you are unmindful of the dead! Give me a grave, for I yearn to pass through the gates of Hades. Until now I have only wandered near them, for phantoms sit there as guards and drive me away. I cannot find rest until my body is burned on the pyre. And, my friend, you must know that Fate has decreed that you too shall fall near the walls of Troy. Therefore let the grave be so that we, who grew up together in your father’s house, may have our bones buried side by side in death.”

  “I shall do all you say,” said Achilles and stretched out his arms to that shadowy form, but it vanished into earth like mist. Achilles leaped up amazed, struck together his hands, and said mournfully to his companions: “So it is true that souls live on in Hades, for this night I saw before me the soul of Patroclus, sad and making lament, but like him in all things!” And his words again wakened the yearning of the heroes for him who was no more.

  When dawn reddened the sky, Agamemnon bade men and mules go forth, Meriones in the lead. The beasts came first, and after them men with axes and ropes. Then on the wooded slopes of Ida the tallest trees were felled and the wood split and loaded on the mules which dragged the trunks down to the ships. And the men too carried logs on their shoulders, and on the shore all was laid in rows. Now Achilles bade his Myrmidons gird on their armor of bronze and yoke the horses to the chariots. Then the funeral procession began to move. First in the chariots came the princes and warriors with their charioteers, and after them followed a vast throng of men on foot. In the midst, his friends and comrades bore Patroclus. His body was covered with locks they had cut from their heads. Following it came Achilles, bowing his head in his hands, and he was sunk in sorrow.

  When they came to the place Achilles had chosen th
ey set down the bier, and a whole forest of trees was heaped for the pyre. The son of Peleus stood apart, cut off one of his golden locks, gazed into the dark tide of the sea, and said: “O Spercheus, river of Thessaly, my country, in vain did my father Peleus vow that if I returned I should shear my hair for you and offer fifty rams at your springs, where your grove stands and your altar. You were deaf to his pleading, O river-god! You will not let me return. And so do not be angry with me if I give this lock to Patroclus, to carry down with him to Hades.” With these words he put the lock in the hands of his friend and said to Agamemnon: “Tell the people to disperse and eat their meal, O prince. After that they shall mourn and bury my friend.”

  At Agamemnon’s command the warriors went their ways among the ships, and only the princes remained. From the trunks of the trees which had been felled they built a great pyre, a hundred feet square, and with heavy hearts laid the body on it. Numberless sheep and horned cattle they flayed beside the pyre, heaped the bodies around, and covered the corpse with the fat. Against the bier they leaned jars of honey and oil and led four living horses to the pyre. They also slaughtered two of the nine dogs of Patroclus and then slew with the sword twelve noble Trojan youths chosen from among the captives. Thus Achilles took terrible vengeance for the death of his friend.

  Then he bade them kindle the pyre, and as they obeyed he called to the dead: “May happiness attend you even in Hades, Patroclus! What I pledged you I have fulfilled! Twelve victims have been slain and shall burn on your pyre. Hector alone shall not be consumed in the flames. His flesh shall be food for the dogs!” He spoke threateningly, but the gods willed otherwise. Day and night Aphrodite kept the ravening dogs from the body of Hector and anointed it with ambrosia, fragrant as roses, until all trace of the dragging had vanished. And Apollo poised a dark cloud over the place where he lay, so that the sun might not shrivel his flesh.