ὣς φάτ᾽ Ἀθηναίη, ὃ δ᾽ ἐπείθετο, χαῖρε δὲ θυμῷ,
στῆ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐπὶ μελίης χαλκογλώχινος ἐρεισθείς.225
ἣ δ᾽ ἄρα τὸν μὲν ἔλειπε, κιχήσατο δ᾽ Ἕκτορα δῖον
Δηϊφόβῳ ἐϊκυῖα δέμας καὶ ἀτειρέα φωνήν:
ἀγχοῦ δ᾽ ἱσταμένη ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα:
ἠθεῖ᾽ ἦ μάλα δή σε βιάζεται ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς
ἄστυ πέρι Πριάμοιο ποσὶν ταχέεσσι διώκων:230
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε δὴ στέωμεν καὶ ἀλεξώμεσθα μένοντες.
τὴν δ᾽ αὖτε προσέειπε μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ:
Δηΐφοβ᾽ ἦ μέν μοι τὸ πάρος πολὺ φίλτατος ἦσθα
γνωτῶν οὓς Ἑκάβη ἠδὲ Πρίαμος τέκε παῖδας:
νῦν δ᾽ ἔτι καὶ μᾶλλον νοέω φρεσὶ τιμήσασθαι,235
ὃς ἔτλης ἐμεῦ εἵνεκ᾽, ἐπεὶ ἴδες ὀφθαλμοῖσι,
τείχεος ἐξελθεῖν, ἄλλοι δ᾽ ἔντοσθε μένουσι.
τὸν δ᾽ αὖτε προσέειπε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη:
ἠθεῖ᾽ ἦ μὲν πολλὰ πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ
λίσσονθ᾽ ἑξείης γουνούμενοι, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἑταῖροι,240
αὖθι μένειν: τοῖον γὰρ ὑποτρομέουσιν ἅπαντες:
ἀλλ᾽ ἐμὸς ἔνδοθι θυμὸς ἐτείρετο πένθεϊ λυγρῷ.
νῦν δ᾽ ἰθὺς μεμαῶτε μαχώμεθα, μὴ δέ τι δούρων
ἔστω φειδωλή, ἵνα εἴδομεν εἴ κεν Ἀχιλλεὺς
νῶϊ κατακτείνας ἔναρα βροτόεντα φέρηται245
νῆας ἔπι γλαφυράς, ἦ κεν σῷ δουρὶ δαμήῃ.
ὣς φαμένη καὶ κερδοσύνῃ ἡγήσατ᾽ Ἀθήνη:
οἳ δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ σχεδὸν ἦσαν ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισιν ἰόντες,
τὸν πρότερος προσέειπε μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ:
οὔ σ᾽ ἔτι Πηλέος υἱὲ φοβήσομαι, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ250
τρὶς περὶ ἄστυ μέγα Πριάμου δίον, οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἔτλην
μεῖναι ἐπερχόμενον: νῦν αὖτέ με θυμὸς ἀνῆκε
στήμεναι ἀντία σεῖο: ἕλοιμί κεν ἤ κεν ἁλοίην.
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε δεῦρο θεοὺς ἐπιδώμεθα: τοὶ γὰρ ἄριστοι
μάρτυροι ἔσσονται καὶ ἐπίσκοποι ἁρμονιάων:255
οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ σ᾽ ἔκπαγλον ἀεικιῶ, αἴ κεν ἐμοὶ Ζεὺς
δώῃ καμμονίην, σὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ἀφέλωμαι:
ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἄρ κέ σε συλήσω κλυτὰ τεύχε᾽ Ἀχιλλεῦ
νεκρὸν Ἀχαιοῖσιν δώσω πάλιν: ὣς δὲ σὺ ῥέζειν.
notes
Athena appears to Hector disguised as his brother Deiophobus and offers to help him fight. Hector asks Achilles to swear an oath that the winner will refrain from mistreating the corpse of the loser, and will simply strip the armor and return the body.
Achilles takes a rest and Athena goes to work. Disguising herself as Deiphobus, Hector’s favorite brother, she offers to stand with him against Achilles. Hector gratefully accepts, exclaiming over how brave she is to venture out of the city alone. Athena plays along: Priam and Hecabe begged her to remain inside the walls, she says; they were afraid, but her heart ached to think of him all alone. She ends with a stout exhortation to stand and fight.
read full essay
If we haven’t started to sympathize with Hector yet, this exchange should do the trick. Playing expertly on both his loyalty to family and his selfless sense of duty, Athena sets him up for betrayal. Inspired by her fake support he faces off against Achilles, no longer afraid as he was at first, ready to fight to the death. He offers to forego despoiling Achilles’ corpse if he wins and asks for the same consideration from his enemy. Even in his last moments his belief in the civilizing norms that sometimes inform heroic warfare persists. In his reply (260–72) Achilles himself assumes the persona of wild animal, first lion to Hector’s human, then wolf to Hector’s lamb, confirmation that this battle will be fought well outside the constraints that Hector vainly imagines might govern the encounter. Hector ducks Achilles’ first spear cast, but unbeknownst to him Athena promptly returns the weapon to Achilles. Still unaware of the transcendent forces arrayed against him Hector makes his last stand. He will not run this time. Achilles will have to kill him face-to-face.
It would be painful enough to witness the death of such an honorable figure without the divine machinery engaged here. As it is, what Homer shows us is a frightening world where honor and decency are not only ineffective, but irrelevant. Achilles embodies in this encounter the two poles of his departure from humanity, bestial savagery and divine transcendence. Both represent the triumph of pure force, unchecked by any moral or ethical concerns. This is the place where Achilles’ selfish pride and arrogance have taken the poem, a trip to a hell of his own making.
The katabasis or “downward journey to the underworld” is one of the most common realizations of the “separation and return” pattern that informs Achilles’ story and those of many other heroes from the ancient Mediterranean: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Orpheus, Heracles, Aeneas. To look death in the face and return to tell about it is the ultimate proof of the hero’s extraordinary stature. On another level the katabasis can represent a journey into the dark places inside us to find certain truths—usually about ourselves—hidden from us in our conscious life. Gilgamesh travels across the Waters of Darkness to the Land of Dilmun, where he confronts and eventually accepts the fact of his own mortality; Aeneas goes to the Underworld where he meets his father, who tells him his role in the future of Rome. Homer’s version here presents the journey into darkness as an internalized drama. After the death of Patroclus, Achilles foreswears the tokens of ordinary participation in human life: food, bathing, sleep, and sex (19.205–14; 23.37–53; 24.4–5, 24.124–31). He travels away from humanity and into the darkness of his own heart. According to the logic of the katabasis paradigm as it appears elsewhere, Achilles should confront some deep truth about himself in this “underworld.” Usually, but not always, that encounter is with the fact of his own mortality in some form. What truth can Achilles be learning here? And how can he confront his mortality when he seems to be moving progressively further from his own humanity? Answering these questions will take us some distance toward understanding how this powerful scene fits into the poem’s overall meaning.
The deaths of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector are thematically linked in various ways, leading to the climactic death scene we are about to witness (see Introduction, “Hector, Patroclus, and the Arms of Achilles”). Each death focuses our attention on the disposition of the fallen warrior’s corpse. Will it be despoiled by the enemy, or saved for a proper burial? At the same time we have noted that the passing of armor from Achilles to Patroclus to Hector raises questions of identity. If Patroclus is wearing Achilles’ armor does he inherit any of his friend’s fighting strength? When Hector strips the armor from Patroclus and puts it on does this act imply any connection between himself and Achilles beyond their implacable enmity? And what will it mean that Achilles will deliver the fatal blow through his own armor?
All these questions are relevant to the “second-self” motif, as it appears in the Iliad (see Introduction, “The Second-Self Motif”), the use of a second character who is complementary to the hero, embodying qualities that he has forsaken, or with which he has lost contact in some way. Enkidu, the wild man the gods created to be a companion to Gilgamesh, plays this role in The Epic of Gilgamesh, as do both Dido and Turnus in the Aeneid. There is always the potential for the appearance of a second self in the hero’s life to be therapeutic, to prompt the healing of the wound inside the hero that caused him to lose track of the qualities displaced onto the second self. But for healing to begin the second self must die, usually driving the hero into grief, and eventually prompting a new understanding of himself and his place in the world.
Both Patroclus and Hector play this role in the poem, one after the other. Patroclus is the repository for the compassion and ability to connect with others that Achilles’ anger and pride cause him to forsake. It is Patroclus who comes to Achilles in Book 16 to beg him to have pity on his fellow Greeks, who are losing the battle against the Trojans. By finally releasing Hector’s corpse to Priam in Book 24, so that the hero may be buried at Troy, Achilles makes contact again with the qualities that Patroclus had embodied. He seems to be restored, however briefly before his own death, to wholeness on the poem’s terms.
If Patroclus carries Achilles’ compassion, Hector becomes the repository of his mortal nature. Homer’s intimate portrait of the Trojan hero in Books 6 and 22, with all his strengths and all his frailty, becomes a foil for Achilles’ frightening departure from ordinary human experience. Though his words sometimes seem to reflect an awareness and acceptance of his own mortality, his actions do not. He is in his own eyes a lion, a wolf to Hector’s lamb, abandoning all pretense to civilized behavior, yearning, as we will see, to eat Hector’s flesh raw, something that both animals and the gods of the Iliad (see 4.34–36) can contemplate, but not humans. Achilles’ titanic rage has finally driven him and us into this darkness. The nadir of the journey comes next.
Further Reading
Beye, C.R. 1976. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition, 2nd edition, 85–86. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Campbell, J. 1949. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
De Jong, I.J.F. 2012. Homer: Iliad Book XXII, 108–113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schein, S. 1984. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad, 27. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Van Nortwick, T. 1992. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero’s Journey in Ancient Epic, 3–7, 27–28, 103–107. New York: Oxford University Press.
224: ὃ δ᾽: “and this one,” Achilles. χαῖρε θυμῷ: “delighted in his heart.” Joy, next to awe, is a regular reaction to divine manifestation.
225: στῆ: 3rd sg. unaugmented root aor. > ἵστημι. ἐρεισθείς: “leaning,” aor. pass. ptc. > ἐρείδω.
226: κιχήσατο: aor. mid. > κιχάνω, with active sense.
227: δέμας … φωνήν: acc. of respect (Goodell 537). προσηύδα: “began to address,” see 22.7.
229: ἠθεῖ’: “dear/trusted one,” = ἠθεῖ(ε), vocative direct address. ἦ μάλα δή: “quite truly now.”
230: ἄστυ πέρι: = περὶ ἄστυ.
231: ἄγε δὴ: “come on now.” στέωμεν … ἀλεξώμεσθα: “let us … let us…,” hortatory aor. subj > ἵστημι (στέωμεν = στήομεν, Αtt. στήωμεν).
232: τὴν δ᾽: “this one,” Athena, who, although now disguised as a man, is still referred to with the feminine pronoun.
233: Δηΐφοβ’: = Δηΐφοβε, vocative direct address. πολὺ: “by far.” ἦσθα: 2nd sg. impf. > εἰμί.
234: γνωτῶν: “of my relatives,” here more specifically “of my brothers,” partitive gen. (Monro 147.2). οὕς … παῖδας: “whom (Hecabe and Priam begot) as their children,” relative pronoun with predicate in apposition. τέκε: 3rd sg. aor. > τίκτω, in agreement with the last of the two subjects.
235: καὶ μᾶλλον: “even more,” adverbial καὶ. νοέω φρεσὶ: “I have in mind to” + inf. φρεσὶ > φρήν. τιμήσασθαι: aor. mid. inf. with no difference in meaning from the active. Supply acc. obj. σέ.
236: ὃς: “(you) who,” relative pronoun, whose antecedent is σέ understood in 235. ἔτλης: "you endured," "had toughness to," + infin., 2nd sg. root aor. > τλάω. ἴδες: aor. > εἶδον. ὀφθαλμοῖσι: dat. pl. of means.
237: τείχεος: “from the wall,” gen. of separation governed by ἐξ- of ἐξελθεῖν (Goodell 509.a). ἐξελθεῖν: aor. inf. > ἐξ-έρχομαι.
238: τὸν δ᾽: “this one,” Hector.
239: ἠθεῖ’: see 229. πολλὰ: “many times,” “often,” adverbial acc.
240: λίσσονθ᾽: = λίσσοντο, 3rd pl. dep. mid. impf. ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἑταῖροι: “and my friends around (me) (begged me).” ἀμφὶ is adverbial.
241: τοῖον: “to such a degree” (Monro)
242: ἐτείρετο: impf. pass. > τείρω, “wear down, distress, trouble.”
243: ἰθὺς: “straightaway,” adverb. μεμαῶτε: "eagerly," dual nom. ptc. > μέμονα, reduplicated perf. with pres. sense (Monro 36.5). μαχώμεθα: “let us,” hortatory subj. μὴ … ἔστω: “let there not be at all sparing use of spears,” neg. 3rd pers. sg. imper. > εἰμί. δούρων: obj. gen. with φειδωλή.
244: ἵνα εἴδομεν: “so that…,” purpose clause with 3rd pl. subj. > οἶδα, Attic εἰδῶμεν, here with the short thematic vowel (Monro 80).
244–246: εἴ … ἦ: “whether he will carry away … or he will be conquered,” alternative indirect questions with prospective subjunctives (φέρηται, pres. mid. subj. > φέρω, and δαμήῃ, uncontracted 3rd sg. aor. pass subj. > δαμνάω/δαμάζω) that describe an imminent future action.
245: νῶϊ: “the two of us,” acc. 1st pl. pers. pronoun. κατακτείνας: nom. sg. aor. ptc.
247: ὣς: “so…,” closing the speech. φαμένη: pres. mid. ptc. > φημί, with no difference in meaning from the active, and often with the sense of completion (“having spoken”). καὶ: “in fact,” adverbial. κερδοσύνῃ: “with cunning,” dat. of manner, “cunningly” (Goodell 526.b).
248: οἳ δὴ: “these (two),” pl. rather than dual. ὅτε δὴ: “just when.” δὴ implies exactness. ἦσαν: 3rd pl. impf. > εἰμί. ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισιν: “against one another.” ἰόντες: ptc. > εἶμι.
249: τὸν: Achilles. πρότερος: “first,” “earlier,” nom. adj. as adverb. Ἕκτωρ: a pendant nominative, developed from the pl. οἳ of 248.
250: οὔ … ἔτι: “no longer.” φοβήσομαι: see 22.137. This is a rare transitive use (“I will flee you”). ὡς … περ: “just as,” “in the very manner as,” equivalent to ὡς, (a precursor of Att. ὥσπερ). τὸ πάρος: “previously,” adv.
251: δίον: “fled,” aor. 2 > δείδω (Monro, see LSJ s.v. δείδω 7).
252: μεῖναι ἐπερχόμενον: “to wait for (you) attacking,” aor. inf. > μένω, which governs the acc. obj. ἐπερχόμενον (pres. ptc. > ἐπ-έρχομαι), with an understood σε. ἀνῆκε: “urged, sent forth,” aor. > ἀν-ίημι.
253: στήμεναι: aor. inf. > ἵστημι (Monro 85.2). ἕλοιμί κεν… ἤ κεν ἁλοίην: “I might take (you) or I might be taken,” i.e. “I might kill (you) or be killed,” potential aor. opt. ἕλοιμι > αἱρέω, ἁλοίην > ἁλίσκομαι (the defective passive of αἱρέω).
254: ἄγε δεῦρο: “come now,” see 22.174. δεῦρο (lit. “hither”) simply strengthens ἄγε. θεοὺς ἐπιδώμεθα: “let us give (to one another) our gods,” i.e. “let us swear,” hortatory aor. mid. subjunctive > ἐπιδίδωμι. τοὶ: “these” gods.
256: ἔκπαγλον: adverbial acc., “outrageously,” “in a violent fashion,” “terribly”
256–257: ἀεικιῶ, αἴ κεν … δώῃ … ἀφέλωμαι: future-more-vivid condition. ἀεικιῶ: fut. > ἀεικίζω. δώῃ: 3rd sg. aor. subj. > δίδωμι. ἀφέλωμαι: 1st sg. aor. mid. > ἀφ-αιρέω.
257: καμμονίην: “withstanding,” “holding one’s ground,” a euphemism for victory (Monro).
258: ἐπεὶ … κέ … συλήσω, δώσω: “when(ever) I strip … I will give.” A general temporal clause, kindred with a future-more-vivid condition (Monro 296). συλήσω: governs a double acc., “strip x (acc.) from y (acc.)” (Goodell 534).
259: ὣς δὲ: “and in this way,” in the same way. ῥέζειν: infinitive used as an imperative.
vocabulary
Ἀθήνη and Ἀθηναίη: Athena
ἄρα, ῥά (enclit.), ἄρ, ῥ᾿: so, then, as you know, you know, it seems. Very often it marks an action as natural, or reminds of something recently said. It also marks transitions.225
μελία: the ash
χαλκογλώχιν: bronze-pointed
ἐρείδω: to lean, prop, support
κιχάνω, fut. κιχήσεσθαι, aor. κιχήσατο, aor. subj. κιχείω [κιχῶ], aor. partic. κιχήμενον: to find, come to, overtake
Ἕκτωρ: Hector, the most distinguished warrior of the Trojans, son of Priam and Hecabe, and husband of Andromache.
δῖος –α –ον: divine, noble, illustrious; marvelous, magnificent
Δηίφοβος: Deïphobus, son of Priam and Hecabe, and brother of Hector
δέμας –αος τό: build, form
ἀτειρής: unyielding, weariless
ἀγχοῦ: near, nigh
πτερόεις πτερόεσσα πτερόεν: feathered, winged
προσαυδάω: to speak to, address
ἠθεῖος: honored, dear
βιάω βιήσω ἐβίασα βεβίηκα βεβίημαι ἐβιήθην: to constrain
ὠκύς ὠκεῖα ὠκύ: quick, swift, fleet
Ἀχιλλεύς -έως or -ῆος ὁ: Achilles, son of Peleus and Thetis, leader of the Myrmidons and Hellenes in Thessaly, the mightiest warrior before Troy, and the principal hero of the Iliad.
ἄστυ ἄστεος τό: a city, town230
Πρίαμος: Priam, son of Laomedon. King of Troy.
ἄγε: come! come on! well!
ἀλέξω, fut. partic. ἀλεξήσοντα: to ward off, defend
αὖτε: again, on the other hand, however, but
κορυθαίολος: crest-waving, gleaming-crested
πάρος: before, formerly
φίλτατος –η –ον: dearest
γνωτός: known; subst. masc. brother
Ἑκάβη: Hecabe, wife of King Priam of Troy
ἠδέ: and
νοέω, aor. ἐνόησε: to perceive, observe, look, devise, plan235
φρήν φρενός ἡ: heart, mind
τλάω: to take upon oneself, to bear, suffer, undergo
ἐξέρχομαι ἐξελεύσομαι ἐξῆλθον ἐξελήλυθα: to go out, come out
ἔντοσθε: within (+gen.)
θεά –ᾶς ἡ: a goddess
γλαυκῶπις -ιδος: gleaming eyed, epithet of Athena
πότνια: mistress, honored
λίσσομαι: to beg, pray, entreat, beseech240
ἑξῆς: one after another, in order, in a row
γουνόομαι: to clasp by the knees: implore
ἑταῖρος –ου ὁ: a comrade, companion, mate
αὖθι: on the spot, here, there, immediately, at once
τοῖος –α –ον: such, like this
ὑποτρομέω: to tremble under
ἔνδοθι: within, at home
τείρω: to oppress, press hard, weigh heavily upon, distress
πένθος –εος τό: grief, sadness, sorrow
λυγρός -ά -όν: sore, baneful, mournful
ἰθύς: straight, direct
μέμαα, perf.: to be eager, rush on impetuously. μεμαότες: eager
δόρυ, gen. δόρατος or δουρός: timber, beam, spear
φειδωλός: sparing, thrifty
κατακτείνω: to kill, slay, murder245
ἔναρα -ων τά: spoils, armor taken from a slain foe
βροτόεις –εντος: gory, bloody
γλᾰφῠρός -ά, -όν: hollow, hollowed
δαμάζω: to overpower, tame, conquer, subdue
κερδοσύνη: cunning, craft
σχεδόν: close, near
Πηλεύς gen. –ῆος and έος : Peleus, king of the Myrmidons. He was the son of Aeacus, husband of Thetis, and father of Achilles.250
τρίς: thrice, three times
ἐπέρχομαι ἔπειμι ἐπῆλθον ἐπελήλυθα: to come near; come upon; attack
ἀνίημι, 2nd. pers. ind. ἀνιεῖς, fem. partic. ἀνιεῖσα, fut. ἀνήσει, aor. ἀνῆκε or ἀνέηκεν, aor. subj. ἀνήῃ, aor. partic. ἀνέντες: to let go, free, urge on
ἀντίος -α or -ιη -ον: opposite, against
δεῦρο: here, this way, over here
ἐπιδίδωμι, aor. ἐπέδωκε, 2nd. aor. mid. ἐπιδώμεθα: to give besides, give along with; mid. to give oneself as a witness
ἐπίσκοπος: one who watches over, an overseer, guardian255
ἁρμονίη: bond, compact
ἔκπαγλος: terrible, redoubtable
ἀεικίζω, fut. ἀεικιῶ, aor. subj. ἀεικίσσωσι, aor. mid. inf. ἀεικίσσασθαι: to treat unseemly, insult, disfigure
Ζεύς Διός ὁ: Zeus, son of Cronus, the husband and brother of Hera and the wisest and mightiest of the gods.
καμμονίη: endurance, victory
συλάω: to strip off
κλυτός –ή –όν: famed, glorious, magnificent
τεῦχος –εος τό: (pl.) arms, armour
νεκρός –οῦ ὁ: a dead body, corpse
Ἀχαιός: Achaian
ῥέζω: to do, perform, offer