Homer. the Iliad. London: Allen Lane, 1973
/ Plot Summary of THE ILIAD
Let's begin this story back at the banquet where Paris has chosen Aphrodite as the fairest of the fair. He claims his prize...the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen of Troy. There's one problem-- Helen is married to Menelaus. And Menelaus is very powerful. He's a brother in-law to Agamemnon, the king of Greece, or Achaia. Paris is also a powerful man. His father is Priam, the king of Troy.
Many princes of Greece owe their allegiance to Agamemnon, and he and Menelaus have persuaded them to wage war against Priam. The Iliad begins nine years into this long war, with the Achaian forces encamped beside their ships near Troy. They have captured and looted a number of towns in Trojan territory, under the dashing leadership of Achilleus), the most unruly of Agamemnon's royal supporters.
The success of these raiding parties leads to a feud between Achilleus and his Commander-in-Chief. Agamemnon has been allotted the girl Chryseis as his prize of war, but her father, a priest of Apollo, demands her return. The priest prays to his god. A plague ensues; and Agamemnon is forced by the strength of public feeling to give up the girl and pacify the angry god. He retaliates by seizing one of Achilleus' own prizes, a girl named Briseis. Achilleus refuses to fight any more and withdraws his force from the battlefield.
After an abortive truce, intended to allow Menelaus and Paris to settle their quarrel by single combat, the two armies meet. With Achilleus still sulking in his tent, the Achaians are put on the defensive. They are forced to make a trench and a wall round their ships and huts. But these defenses are eventually stormed by Hektor, the Trojan Commander-in-Chief, who succeeds in setting fire to one of the Achaian ships.
At this point, Achilleus yields and permits his closest friend Patroklos (wearing Achilleus' armor) to lead the Myrmidon force to the rescue of the hard-pressed Achaians. Patroklos brilliantly succeeds in his mission, but he goes too far and is killed under the walls of Troy by Hektor. The death of his best friend brings Achilleus to life. In an excess of rage with Hektor and grief for his comrade, he reconciles himself with Agamemnon, takes the field once more, and hurls the panic-stricken Trojans back into their town. (This is where your excerpt begins) Achilleus finally kills Hektor. Not content with this revenge, he savagely abuses the body of his fallen enemy. Hektor's father, King Priam, in his grief and horror, is inspired by the gods to visit Achilleus in his camp by night, in order to recover his son's body. Achilleus relents, and the Iliad ends with an uneasy truce for the funeral of Hektor.
If you cannot see the entire width of the story below:
click here to open this document in a new window.
If your monitor is capable of 800 X 600 resolution or better, then just maximize your browser.
Excerpt from The Iliad
Homer
Book XXII: "The Death of Hektor"
NARRATOR: Deeply troubled [Hektor] spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:
HEKTOR "Ah me! If I go now inside the wall and the gateway,
Poulydamas 1 will be first to put a reproach upon me,
Since he tried to make me lead the Trojans inside the city / 1. Poulydamas:
Fighter and seer who frequently opposed his brother Hektor's reckless strategy.
5 / on that accursed night when brilliant Achilleus rose up,
And I would not obey him, but that would have been far better
Now, since by my own recklessness I have ruined my people,
I feel shame before the Trojans and the Trojan women with trailing
robes, that someone who is less of a man than I will say of me:
10 / 'Hektor believed in his own strength and ruined his people.'
Thus they will speak; and as for me, it would be much better
at that time, to go against Achilleus, and slay him, and come back,
or else be killed by him in glory in front of the city.
Or if again I set down my shield massive in the middle
15 / and my ponderous helm, and lean my spear up against the rampart
and go out, as I am to meet Achilleus the blameless
and promise to give back Helen, and with all her possessions,
all those things that once in the hollow ships Alexandros
brought back to Troy and these were the beginnings of the quarrel;
20 / to give these to Atreus' sons to take away, and for the Achaians
also to divide up all that is hidden within the city,
and take an oath thereafter for the Trojans in conclave 2
not to hide anything away, but distribute all of it,
as much as the lovely citadel keeps guarded within it; / 2. Conclave:
Private or secret meeting.
25 / yet still, why does the heart within me debate on these things?
I might go up to him, and he take no pity upon me
nor respect my position, but kill me naked so, as if I were
a woman, once I stripped my armor from me. There is no
way any more from a tree or a rock to talk to him gently
30 / whispering like a young man and a young girl, in the way
a young man and a young maiden whisper together.
Better to bring on the fight with him as soon as it may be.
We shall see to which one the Olympian grants the glory."
NARRATOR: So he pondered, waiting, but Achilleus was closing upon him
35 / in the likeness of the lord of battles, the helm-shining warrior,
and shaking from above his shoulder the dangerous Pelian 3
ash spear, while the bronze that closed about him was shining
like the flare of blazing fire or the sun in its rising.
And the shivers took hold of Hektor when he saw him, and he could no / 3. Pelian:
Belonging to Peleus, Achilleus' father.
40 / longer stand his ground there, but left the gates behind, and fled, frightened,
and Peleus' son went after him in the confidence of his quick feet.
As when a hawk in the mountains who moves lightest of things flying
makes his effortless swoop for a trembling dove, but she slips away
from beneath and flies and he shrill screaming close after her
45 / plunges for her again and again, heart furious to take her;
so Achilleus went straight for him in fury, but Hektor
fled away under the Trojan wall and moved his knees rapidly.
They raced along by the watching point and the windy fig tree
always away from under the wall and along the wagon-way
50 / and came to the two sweet-running well springs. There there are double
springs of water that jet up, the springs of whirling Skamandros.
One of these runs hot water and the steam on all sides
of it rises as if from a fire that was burning inside it.
But the other in the summer-time runs water that is like hail
55 / or chill snow or ice that forms from water. Beside these
in this place, and close to them, are the washing-hollows
of stone, and magnificent, where the wives of the Trojans and their lovely
daughters washed the clothes to shining, in the old days
when there was peace, before the coming of the sons of the Achaians.
60 / They ran beside these, one escaping, the other after him
it was a great man who fled, but far better he who pursued him
rapidly, since here was no festal 4 beast, no ox-hide
they strove for, for these are prizes that are given men for their running.
No, they ran for the life of Hektor, breaker of horses. / 4. festal:
Of a joyous celebration.
65 / As when about the turnposts racing single-footed horses
run at full speed, when a great prize is laid up for their winning,
a tripod or a woman, in games for a man's funeral,
so these two swept whirling about the city of Priam
in the speed of their feet, while all the gods were looking upon them.
70 / First to speak among them was the father of gods and mortals;
ZEUS: "Ah me, this a man beloved whom now my eyes watch
being chased around the wall; my heart is mourning for Hektor
who has burned in my honor many thigh pieces of oxen
on the peaks of Ida 5 with all her folds, or again on the uttermost / 5. Ida:
Mountain near the site of Troy.
75 / part of the citadel, but now the brilliant Achilleus
drives him in speed of his feet around the city of Priam.
Come then, you immortals, take thought and take counsel, whether
to rescue this man or whether to make him, for all his valor,
go down under the hands of Achilleus, the son of Peleus."
80 / NARRATOR: Then in answer the goddess gray-eyed Athene spoke to him:
ATHENE: "Father of the shining bolt, dark misted, what is this you said?
Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since
doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him?
Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you."
85 / NARRATOR: Then Zeus the gatherer of the clouds spoke to her in answer:
ZEUS: "Tritogeneia, 6 dear daughter, do not lose heart; for I say this
not in outright anger, and my meaning toward you is kindly.
Act as your purpose would have you do, and hold back no longer."
NARRATOR: So he spoke, and stirred Athene, who was eager before this, / 6. Tritogeneia:
Another name for Athene, who was born near Lake Tritonis in a part of Africa.
90 / and she went in a flash of speed down the pinnacles of Olympos.
But swift Achilleus kept unremittingly after Hektor,
chasing him, as a dog in the mountains who has flushed from his covert 7
a deer's fawn follows him through the folding ways and the valleys,
and though the fawn crouched down under a bush and be hidden / 7. covert:
A hiding place.
95 / he keeps running and noses him out until he comes on him;
so Hektor could not lose himself from swift-footed Peleion.
If ever he made a dash right on for the gates of Dardanos
to get quickly under the strong-built bastion, endeavoring
that they from above with missiles thrown might somehow defend him,
100 / each time Achilleus would get in front and force him to turn back
into the plain, and himself kept his flying course next the city.
As in a dream a man is not able to follow one who runs
from him, nor can the runner escape, nor the other person pursue him,
so he could not run him down in his speed, nor the other get clear.
105 / How then could Hektor have escaped the death spirits, had not
Apollo, for this last and uttermost time, stood by him
close, and driven strength into him, and made his knees light?
But brilliant Achilleus kept shaking his head at his own people
and would not let them throw their bitter projectiles 8 at Hektor / 8. projectiles:
Objects designed to be thrown forward.
110 / for fear the thrower might win the glory, and himself come second.
But when for the fourth time they had come around to the well springs
then the father balanced his golden scales, and in them
he set two fateful portions of death, which lays men prostrate; 9
one for Achilleus, and one for Hektor, breaker of horses, / 9. prostrate:
Flat; face downward; completely overcome.
115 / and balanced it by the middle; and Hektor's death-day was heavier
and dragged downward toward death, and Phoibos Apollo forsook 10 him.
But the goddess gray-eyed Athene came now to Peleion
and stood close beside him and addressed him in winged words:
ATHENE: "Beloved of Zeus, shining Achilleus, I am hopeful now that you and I / 10. forsook:
Abandoned.
120 / will take back great glory to the ships of the Achaians, after
we have killed Hektor, for all his slakeless 11 fury for battle.
Now there is no way for him to get clear away from us,
not though Apollo who strikes from afar should be willing to undergo
much, and wallow 12 before our father Zeus of the aegis. / 11. slakeless:
Unable to be satisfied or lessened.
12. wallow:
Move heavily and clumsily.
125 / Stand you here then and get your wind again, while I go
to this man and persuade him to stand up to you in combat."
NARRATOR: So spoke Athene, and he was glad at heart, and obeyed her,
and stopped, and stood leaning on his bronze-barbed ash spear.
Meanwhile Athene left him there, and caught up with brilliant Hektor,
130 / and likened herself in form and weariless voice to Deïphobos. 13
She came now and stood close to him and addressed him in winged words:
ATHENE: "Dear brother, indeed swift-footed Achilleus is using you roughly
and chasing you on swift feet around the city of Priam.
Come on, then; let us stand fast against him and beat him back from us.".
/ 13. Deïphobos:
Son of Priam; powerful Trojan fighter.
135 / NARRATOR: Then tall Hektor of the shining helm answered her:
HEKTOR: "Deïphobos, before now you were dearest to me by far of my brothers,
of all those who were sons of Priam and Hekabe, and now
I am minded all the more within my heart to honor you,
you who dared for my sake, when your eyes saw me, to come forth
140 / from the fortifications, while the others stand fast inside them."
NARRATOR: Then in turn the goddess gray-eyed Athene answered him:
ATHENE: "My brother, it is true our father and the lady our mother, taking
my knees in turn, and my companions about me, entreated
that I stay within, such was the terror upon all of them.
145 / But the heart within me was worn away by hard sorrow for you.
But now let us go straight on the fight hard, let there be no sparing
of our spears, so that we can find out whether Achilleus
will kill us both and carry our bloody war spoils back
to the hollow ships, or will himself go down under your spear."
150 / NARRATOR: So Athene spoke and led him beguilementilment.
Now as the two in their advance were come close together,
first of the two to speak was tall helm-glittering Hektor:
HEKTOR: "Son of Peleus, I will no longer run from you, as before this
I fled three times around the great city of Priam, and dared not
155 / stand to your onfall. But now my spirit in turn has driven me
to stand and face you. I must take you now, or I must be taken.
Come then, shall we swear before the gods? For these are the highest
who shall be witnesses and watch over our agreements.
Brutal as you are I will not defile you, if Zeus grants
160 / to me that I can wear you out, and take the life from you.
But after I have stripped your glorious armor, Achilleus,
I will give your corpse back to the Achaians. Do you do likewise?"
NARRATOR: Then looking darkly at him swift-footed Achilleus answered:
ACHILLEUS: "Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.
165 / As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions,
nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement
but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other,
so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be
oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then
170 / to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard.
Remember every valor of yours, for now the need comes
hardest upon you to be a spearman and a bold warrior.
There shall be no more escape for you, but Pallas Athene
will kill you soon by my spear. You will pay in a lump for all these
175 / sorrows of my companions you killed in your spear's fury."
NARRATOR: So he spoke, and balanced the spear far shadowed, and threw it;
but glorious Hektor kept his eyes on him, and avoided it,
for he dropped, watchful, to his knee, and the bronze spear flew over his shoulder
and stuck in the ground, but Pallas Athene snatched it, and gave it
180 / back to Achilleus, unseen by Hektor shepherd of the people.
But now Hektor spoke out to the blameless son of Peleus:
HEKTOR: "You missed; and it was not, o Achilleus like the immortals,
from Zeus that you knew my destiny; but you thought so; or rather
you are someone clever in speech and spoke to swindle me,
185 / to make me afraid of you and forget my valor and war strength.
You will not stick your spear in my back as I run away from you
but drive it into my chest as I storm straight in against you;
if the god gives you that; and now look out for my brazen
spear. I wish it might be taken full length in your body.
190 / And indeed the war would be a lighter thing for the Trojans