24.677–706

He and Achilles are sleeping, but not Hermes, who stays on alert, standing in for the old king in the familiar role of the hero who is awake while others sleep. The narrative pattern is flexible, with several variations, the most common being a mortal who is visited by a dream, often featuring a god with advice (e.g., Od. 6.13–40; 20.30–54). Even without the dream, the wakefulness can signal some significant action to come (cf. Il. 10.1–24; 24.1–21) or it may be a god who is awake, as here and at 2.1-34 (there with a further twist, a deceptive dream, meant to test a mortal). Hermes’s mild sarcasm is also a common feature (cf., 2.23–24; Od. 6.25). The common denominator in all these passages is a signal that action is imminent.

Hermes has the same concern as Achilles, that Priam might be discovered by his enemies, who would attack him and stop the rescue mission. The old king rouses his herald and Hermes silently yokes the horses and mules, driving them out of the camp and onto the plain. When the rescue party reaches the ford of the river Xanthus again, Hermes goes back to Olympus and the tension, running just under the surface of the story ever since Priam left Troy, finally dissipates. The poem’s final scenes, majestic and melancholy, now move to their conclusion.

Dawn arrives as Hermes departs, bringing an end to the long dark night of Priam’s heroic mission:

ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ πόρον ἷξον ἐϋρρεῖος ποταμοῖο
Ξάνθου δινήεντος, ὃν ἀθάνατος τέκετο Ζεύς,
Ἑρμείας μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπέβη πρὸς μακρὸν Ὄλυμπον,
Ἠὼς δὲ κροκόπεπλος ἐκίδνατο πᾶσαν ἐπ᾽ αἶαν,
οἳ δ᾽ εἰς ἄστυ ἔλων οἰμωγῇ τε στοναχῇ τε
ἵππους, ἡμίονοι δὲ νέκυν φέρον. οὐδέ τις ἄλλος
ἔγνω πρόσθ᾽ ἀνδρῶν καλλιζώνων τε γυναικῶν,
ἀλλ᾽ ἄρα Κασσάνδρη ἰκέλη χρυσῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ
Πέργαμον εἰσαναβᾶσα φίλον πατέρ᾽ εἰσενόησεν
ἑσταότ᾽ ἐν δίφρῳ, κήρυκά τε ἀστυβοώτην:
τὸν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ἡμιόνων ἴδε κείμενον ἐν λεχέεσσι:
κώκυσέν τ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἔπειτα γέγωνέ τε πᾶν κατὰ ἄστυ:
ὄψεσθε Τρῶες καὶ Τρῳάδες Ἕκτορ᾽ ἰόντες,
εἴ ποτε καὶ ζώοντι μάχης ἐκνοστήσαντι
χαίρετ᾽, ἐπεὶ μέγα χάρμα πόλει τ᾽ ἦν παντί τε δήμῳ.

But when they reached the ford of the free-flowing river,
whirling Xanthus, the river fathered by immortal Zeus,
then Hermes went away toward great Olympus,
and Dawn, wrapped in her saffron robe, spread over all the land,
and they drove the horses into the city with groaning
and lamentation, while the mules bore the body, nor was anyone
else aware of them, neither the men nor the fair-girdled women,
before Cassandra, a woman like golden Aphrodite.
Going up to the Pergamon, the citadel, she saw her father,
standing in his chariot, and with him the clear-voiced herald,
and Hector lay on the bier behind the mules.
She shrieked then and shouted across the whole city:
“Come, Trojan men and women, and look upon Hector,
and if you ever rejoiced to see him coming home from battle
alive, since he was a great joy to his city and all the people.”

Iliad 24.692–706

The style of these verses is exquisitely tuned to the moment, phrases fitted to the verse structure, language measured and expansive with multisyllabic epithets. This is Homer’s cumulative style at its most regular, with the only two verses, 696–97, carrying the sense of the sentence across the verse end without a pause. But if the tranquil pace of the style as the wagons approach the city suggests a lowering of the dramatic temperature, this respite is soon countered by the first onset of grief. We see the little caravan with its woeful cargo first through the eyes of a single, lonely figure. It is impossible to know whether the later stories of Cassandra as the doomed prophet, raped by Apollo and then effectively silenced when no one would believe her prophecies, would be in the minds of the first audiences for the poem. In any event, as a daughter of Priam, she embodies the city’s loss—especially if her rape is part of the story.

The long view from the city walls is a perspective that the poet has used to great effect before, beginning with Helen in Book 3 and then Andromache in Book 6 (3.161–344; 6.381–403). Later, when the poet brings us toward the dramatic climax of Hector’s duel with Achilles and poignant death, we find ourselves back on top of the walls. First, Priam looks out across the plain to see Achilles running at full speed toward Hector (22.25–32), and then the Trojans look on helplessly as Achilles drags Hector’s body around the city walls (22.405–9). In the former passage, Priam looks out across the plain to see Achilles advancing relentlessly: (22.25–32)

τὸν δ᾽ ὃ γέρων Πρίαμος πρῶτος ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσι
παμφαίνονθ᾽ ὥς τ᾽ ἀστέρ᾽ ἐπεσσύμενον πεδίοιο,
ὅς ῥά τ᾽ ὀπώρης εἶσιν, ἀρίζηλοι δέ οἱ αὐγαὶ
φαίνονται πολλοῖσι μετ᾽ ἀστράσι νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ,
ὅν τε κύν᾽ Ὠρίωνος ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσι.
λαμπρότατος μὲν ὅ γ᾽ ἐστί, κακὸν δέ τε σῆμα τέτυκται,
καί τε φέρει πολλὸν πυρετὸν δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν:
ὣς τοῦ χαλκὸς ἔλαμπε περὶ στήθεσσι θέοντος.

The old king Priam was the first to see him,
brilliant like a star as he swept across the plain,
the star that comes in the autumn, its clear beams
shining among the many stars in the murk of night,
the one they call the Dog of Orion.
It is the brightest yet carries an evil omen,
bearing much burning heat for unfortunate mortals.
So his armor shown around his chest as he ran.

Iliad 22.25–32

Homer is adept at what we might now call cinematic effects, manipulating our perspective to achieve his purposes. In all three of these later passages, pulling us away from the figures on the plain makes them physically smaller while expanding the context we see them in. Achilles racing toward Hector from a distance now appears both under the overarching sky and at the same time in that sky where the simile puts him, a source of searing and painful heat, elemental and cosmic; the corpse bouncing along in the dust behind Achilles’s chariot looks yet more helpless and further out of reach; the wagons carrying Priam and Hector’s body move more slowly from a distance, small and silent, surrounded by the empty landscape. And in all these passages, looking through the eyes of the ones who loved Hector the most makes our own emotional engagement all the more wrenching.

Further Reading

Nagler, M. 1974. Spontaneity and Tradition: The Oral Art of Homer, 119–130. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Whitman, C. 1958. Homer and The Heroic Tradition, 217–220. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.