Homer, Iliad XXII 98-130

Hector considers the possibility of negotiating with Achilles on the return of Helen, only to dismiss it as fantasy. If he puts down his weapons Achilles will slaughter him where he stands. He must fight.

Hector’s monologue expresses everything we have learned about him: his bravery and fears, his determination and regret. Yet in a way that is peculiar to Homeric poetry it is both an extraordinarily revealing portrait and the realization of a recurring type scene, “the lone fighter surrounded by enemies.” [read full essay]

98: ὀχθήσας: “becoming distressed” (angry, indignant, grieved), ingressive nom. sg. aor. act. ptc. > ὀχθέω (Goodell 464). ὃν: “his,” = ἑόν, 3rd pers. sg. acc. of the possessive pronoun (Goodell 204), thus θυμόν is the obj. of πρὸς. Hector is debating the matter with himself.

99: ὤ μοι: “Ah me!” exclamatory. ἐγών: = ἐγώ, final -ν avoids elision.

99–100: εἰ … κε … δύω, ἀναθήσει: “if I enter…, will lay upon,” future-more-vivid condition (εἰ + κε/ἄν + subj., fut. indicative), δύω is pres. subj. and ἀναθήσει is fut. indic. > ἀνατίθημι (Goodell 650).

100: πρῶτος: adverbial

101: ὅς: “who,” relative. ἐκέλευε: “kept urging,” “kept bidding,” an iterative impf. is appropriate here. Τρωσὶ: dat. obj. of ἡγέομαι. ποτὶ: = πρός. ἡγήσασθαι: “to lead, direct,” see 18.254 ff. (Monro).

102: νύχθ᾽ ὕπο τήνδ᾽ ὀλοὴν: “during this destructive night,” = ὑπὸ νύκτα. νύχθ᾽ is acc. sg. with elision before aspirated vowel (Monro 203.2). ὅτε τε: an irregular use of epic τε, which normally occurs in omnitemporal contexts, here in connection with one specific event (de Jong, with Monro 332.b). ὤρετο: "rose up" in a hostile sense, "hurled himself, pounced, attacked," aor. mid., see LSJ s.v. ὄρνυμι A.1.

103: πιθόμην: unaugmented aor. mid. > πείθω. ἦ τ’: “and yet.” ἂν … ἦεν: “it would be,” ἄν + impf. indic. > εἰμί, Att. ἦν, in a present contrary-to-fact construction (with implied protasis “if I had obeyed”).

104: νῦν δ᾽: “but as it is,” commonly follows contrafactuals. ὤλεσα: 1st sg. aor. act. > ὄλλυμι. ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ἐμῇσιν: “because of my folly,” dat. of cause (Goodell 526.a).

105: αἰδέομαι: “I feel shame before” + acc.

106: μή … εἴπῃσι: “lest … say,” clause of fearing, μή + subj., here 3rd sg aor. thematic subjunctive with athematic ending > εἶπον (Goodell 611.b). κακώτερος: comparative. κακός in Homer is not a moral term (“bad”), but it refers to a cowardly, socially inferior, or harmful person (de Jong). ἐμεῖο: “than me,” Att. ἐμοῦ, gen. of comparison (Goodell 517).

107: ἧφι βίηφι: “his might.” ἧφι = ἑῇ, dat. sg. obj. of πιθήσας (“trusting in”). ὤλεσε: 3rd sg. aor. > ὄλλυμι.

108: ἐρέουσιν: “they will say,” i.e. Trojans in general, fut. > εἴρω. ἂν … εἴη: “it would be,” potential opt. (ἄν + opt.), 3rd sg. pres. opt. > εἰμί (Goodell 479).

109: ἄντην: “facing” (Achilles). This is the important word, the meaning being that it is better to face Achilles, whether the consequence is victory or death (Monro). ἢ … ἠέ: “either … or.” Ἀχιλῆα κατακτείναντα νέεσθαι: “to return (home) having slain Achilles.” κατακτείναντα: aor. ptc., antecedent an understood μέ, the acc. subject of νέεσθαι. As often in impersonal constructions like κέρδιον εἴη, the grammar shifts between an understood acc. subject (thus the acc. participle) and the dat. (see αὐτῷ in line 110, below) (Monro 240).

110: κεν: superfluous repetition of ἂν above. αὐτῷ:“or die myself,” predicative dat. in agreement with ἐμοί. ὀλέσθαι: “to perish,” aor. mid. inf. > ὄλλυμι. πρὸ πόληος: gen. > πόλις, Att. πόλεως. The literal meaning (“in front of”) and figurative one (“in defence of”) coincide (de Jong).

111–121: εἰ … κεν … καταθείομαι, ἔλθω, ὑπόσχωμαι, ἕλωμαι: lengthy protasis of a future-more-vivid condition that breaks off without an apodosis in line 121 in anacolouthon. Aorist subjunctives > κατατίθημι,  ἔρχομαι, ὑπισχνέομαι, and αἱρέω.

111: καταθείομαι: aor. subjunctive with short thematic vowel; -ει- is due to metrical lengthening to avoid four short elements (de Jong).

112: πρὸς: “on the side of.”

113: αὐτὸς ἰὼν: “going on my own, just like that,” i.e. without armor. “In person,” not through herald or messenger (Monro). ἀντίος: postpositive, governs a gen.

114: οἱ: = αὐτῷ, 3rd pers. sg. dat. of the personal pronoun (Monro 99), indirect object with ὑπόσχωμαι. ὑπόσχωμαι: governs complementary infins. δωσέμεν and ἀποδάσσεσθαι in lines 117–118. κτήμαθ᾽: = κτήματα. αὐτῇ: Helen.

115: πάντα … ὅσσα: “quite all, as much as,” i.e. “everything that.” The governing verb is δωσέμεν in 117. νηυσὶν: “ships.”

116: ἠγάγετο: aor. mid. > ἄγω. Τροίηνδ': “to Troy.” The suffix -δε designates a place to which (Monro 335.2). ἥ τε: “which,” relative attracted to the gender of ἀρχή and referring to all that preceded, i.e., Paris taking with him Helen and captured goods. τε does not have here its normal frequentative or generalizing force. ἔπλετο: “became,” “turned out to be.”

117: δωσέμεν: “to give,” Aeolic future infinitive, Att. δώσειν (Monro 85.2) is governed by ὑπόσχωμαι above and in turn governs Ἑλένην … πάντα as a direct object. Ἀτρεΐδῃσιν: dat. indirect object. ἄγειν: “to carry off,” infin. of purpose (Goodell 565). ἅμα δ᾽: an adverb, not a preposition. ἀμφίς: “in two parts.” Some take it to mean “separately,” sc. that the treasure brought by Paris was not to count in the division of the Trojan possessions: but this is less natural. (Monro).

118: ἄλλ᾽: ἄλλα, neuter acc. direct object. ἀποδάσσεσθαι: fut., parallel to δωσέμεν. κέκευθε: “holds,” “contains,” pf. > κεύθω.

119: γερούσιον ὅρκον: an orath pledged by the Trojan elders in the name of the entire population (de Jong). ἕλωμαι: “I will exact” (de Jong).

120: κατακρύψειν … δάσασθαι: infinitives explaining the oath (Goodell 565). δάσασθαι: aor. dep. mid. inf. > δατέομαι, though some editors print the fut. infin. δάσεσθαι in agreement with κατακρύψειν.

121: κτῆσιν: acc. obj. modifed by πάντα. ὅσην: “as much as.”

122: τί ἤ: “why truly?” strengthened form of τί.  Hector breaks the future-more-vivid condition off without an apodosis and poses a question. μοι: the dative of the personal pronoun is often used in place of a possessive (Monro 143.1). φίλος: “my own,” adj. used alongside μοι to strengthen the possessive.

123: μή … ἵκωμαι, ὁ δέ οὐκ ἐλεήσει: an example of parataxis, lit. “(I fear) that I come to him, and he will not pity me,” i.e. “I fear that if I will come up to him, he will not pity me.” ἵκωμαι: “come as a suppliant,” aor. dep mid. subj. > ἱκνέομαι, fearing clause in an independent construction (Monro 278.b). μιν: “him,” Achilles, = αὐτόν, acc. of direction without preposition. ἰών: nom. sg. pres. ptc. > εἶμι. ὃ δέ: “but he…,” Achilles.

124: οὐδέ τί: “nor at all,” “and not a bit.”  τι is adverbial accusative (Goodell 540) before enclitic με. κτενέει: uncontracted fut. > κτείνω. 

125: αὔτως ὥς τε: “in the same way as,” simile introduced by epic τε (Monro 332.b). ἐπεί κ᾽: “when,” subjunctive (> δύω) + κε/ἄν in a general temporal clause of indefinite frequency (Goodell 629). ἀπὸ … δύω: “take off.”

126: οὐ μέν … ἔστιν: “it is not … possible.” οὐ μέν (= μήν) suggests an emphatic denial. ἀπὸ δρυὸς … ἀπὸ πέτρης: although the precise meaning of the obviously proverbial “from oak or from rock” is lost, it here means something like “(to talk about) irrelevant, fanciful things.” See Odyssey 19.163 and Hesiod, Theogony 35, where the meaning is somewhat different.

127: τῷ: “with this one,” Achilles. ὀαριζέμεναι: "to gossip," "to "chat confidentially," inf. subject with impersonal ἔστιν (Goodell 574).

127–128: Hector lets his thoughts trail, and the construction changes in the course of the sentence: “to talk, as girl and boy (do), (as) girl and boy talk with each other” (de Jong).

128: ἅ τε: “just as,” “like,” Att. ἅτε, acc. neut. pl. in an accusative of respect (“in respect to which things”) > ὅστε, the relative pronoun with epic τε in generalizing relative clauses. παρθένος ἠΐθεός τε: “a maiden and a young man,” repeated for emphasis at the beginning of 128, in an example of epanalepsis, which Eustathius suggests gives expression to Hector’s fear and nervousness (de Jong). ὀαρίζετον: dual 3rd pers. pres. ἀλλήλοιιν: dual dat. reciprocal pronoun (Goodell 202).

129: βέλτερον: “(it is) better.” ἔριδι: “in…,” specifying dative (Goodell 527.b). ὅττι τάχιστα: “as quickly as possible.”

130: εἴδομεν: “let us know,” 1st pl. hortatory subjunctive > οἶδα, Attic εἰδῶμεν, here with the short thematic vowel (Monro 80). ὁπποτέρῳ: “to whichever one,” dat. indirect obj. κεν … ὀρέξῃ: “will hold out,” anticipatory subj. indicating limitation to circumstances in the future (Goodell 283b). εὖχος: “a reason to boast,” i.e. “glory,” neuter acc. object.