24.200–227

ὤ μοι πῇ δή τοι φρένες οἴχονθ᾽, ᾗς τὸ πάρος περ
ἔκλε᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ξείνους ἠδ᾽ οἷσιν ἀνάσσεις;
πῶς ἐθέλεις ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν ἐλθέμεν οἶος
ἀνδρὸς ἐς ὀφθαλμοὺς ὅς τοι πολέας τε καὶ ἐσθλοὺς
υἱέας ἐξενάριξε: σιδήρειόν νύ τοι ἦτορ.
εἰ γάρ σ᾽ αἱρήσει καὶ ἐσόψεται ὀφθαλμοῖσιν
ὠμηστὴς καὶ ἄπιστος ἀνὴρ ὅ γε οὔ σ᾽ ἐλεήσει,
οὐδέ τί σ᾽ αἰδέσεται. νῦν δὲ κλαίωμεν ἄνευθεν
ἥμενοι ἐν μεγάρῳ: τῷ δ᾽ ὥς ποθι Μοῖρα κραταιὴ
γιγνομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ, ὅτε μιν τέκον αὐτή,
ἀργίποδας κύνας ἆσαι ἑῶν ἀπάνευθε τοκήων
ἀνδρὶ πάρα κρατερῷ, τοῦ ἐγὼ μέσον ἧπαρ ἔχοιμι
ἐσθέμεναι προσφῦσα: τότ᾽ ἄντιτα ἔργα γένοιτο
παιδὸς ἐμοῦ, ἐπεὶ οὔ ἑ κακιζόμενόν γε κατέκτα,
ἀλλὰ πρὸ Τρώων καὶ Τρωϊάδων βαθυκόλπων
ἑσταότ᾽ οὔτε φόβου μεμνημένον οὔτ᾽ ἀλεωρῆς.

Alas, where has your mind gone, that wisdom for which
you were famous among foreigners and your own subjects?
How can you wish to go to the ships of the Achaeans alone,
before the eyes of the man who has killed so many
of your excellent sons? The heart in you is iron.
If that savage and faithless man should
catch sight of you and capture you, he will not pity you
nor respect you in any way. Now we should mourn
sitting alone in the halls, how once powerful Fate
spun his life’s line when he was born, when I myself bore him,
to sate the swift-footed dogs, far from his parents,
at the hands of a stronger man, whose liver I wish I could
rip into and eat. Then there would be revenge for
my child, since he was no coward when that man killed him,
but before the Trojan men and the Trojan women with trailing robes
he stood firm, thinking of neither flight nor escape.

Iliad 24.201–16

The poet has Priam consult Hecuba, even though he has made up his mind, so we can hear her now. Since the beginning of Book 24, the focus has been on the tortured soul of Achilles, the pain his actions have visited on Thetis, and the timeless world of the Olympian gods. But the human world of Troy, its royal family and its suffering citizens, has also borne a terrible burden throughout the story. We have seen this especially through Hector’s painful choices, in Book 6 when he sees his family for the last time, and Book 22, when he tries one more time to save his city, and through the anguish of his wife and parents when they see Achilles dragging his corpse around the walls of the city.

The marriage of Hector and Andromache carries a heavy symbolic load in the Iliad. Trojan civilization stands for all that is at risk when the forces of masculine self-assertion rage unchecked. At the center of that civilization, embodying its fragility and complexity, stand a man and a woman, and between them, their child. Book 6 takes us inside the city walls with Hector, to see what he must defend and what he must inevitably lose. In his meetings with Hecuba, Paris, Helen and, finally, Andromache and Astyanax, he carries the world of battle with him, so that each encounter dramatizes both particular emotional dynamics—mother and son, sibling rivalries, husband and wife, father and son—and a larger interaction between the relentless masculine drive for status is a hierarchical, zero-sum warrior society and the feminine need for connection, blurring and so threatening the boundaries of masculine identity. Awaiting Achilles before the walls of his city in Book 22, Hector embodies all these inherent tensions and now in the wake of his death, Hecuba bears fierce witness to the love his heroism inspires in those he wanted to protect.

In his wife’s eyes, Priam has lost his mind, an old man going to face Achilles alone. And yet there is some admiration here too: σιδήρειόν νύ τοι ἦτορ. We will hear this phrase used of the old king again soon, by his implacable enemy:

πῶς ἔτλης ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν ἐλθέμεν οἶος
ἀνδρὸς ἐς ὀφθαλμοὺς ὅς τοι πολέας τε καὶ ἐσθλοὺς
υἱέας ἐξενάριξα; σιδήρειόν νύ τοι ἦτορ.

How can you dare to come to the ships of the Achaeans alone,
before the eyes of the man who has killed so many
of your excellent sons? The heart in you is iron!

Iliad 24.519–21

Priam will materialize from the darkness, his reckless courage stunning even Achilles into admiration. One definition of heroism in Greek tragic literature is the will to act in the face of hopeless odds. In this brief exchange between husband and wife, see can see the poet painting the portrait of Priam as hero, a stature that even his worst enemy will have to acknowledge. Now the old man shuts off further debate: he is going to face Achilles and will collect the body of his son, even if he must die embracing it one more time. Hecuba will not oppose him further, letting him go to what looks like certain death. In this gesture, she mirrors Thetis, who has resigned herself to her son’s fated death.

Further Reading

Schein, S. 1984. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad, 168–195. Berkeley. University of California Press.