and Hecuba led them now in a throbbing chant of sorrow:
“Hector, dearest to me by far of all my sons ...
and dear to the gods while we still shared this life—
and they cared about you still, I see, even after death.
Many the sons I had whom the swift runner Achilles
caught and shipped on the barren salt sea as slaves
to Samos, to Imbros, to Lemnos shrouded deep in mist!
But you, once he slashed away your life with his brazen spear
he dragged you time and again around his comrade’s tomb,
Patroclus whom you kitted—not that he brought Patroclus
back to life by that. But I have you with me now ...
fresh as the morning dew you lie in the royal halls
like one whom Apollo, lord of the silver bow,
has approached and shot to death with gentle shafts.”
Her voice rang out in tears and an endless wail rose up
and Helen, the third in turn, led their songs of sorrow:
“Hector! Dearest to me of all my husband’s brothers—
my husband, Paris, magnificent as a god ...
he was the one who brought me here to Troy—
Oh how I wish I’d died before that day!
But this, now, is the twentieth year for me
since I sailed here and forsook my own native land,
yet never once did I hear from you a taunt, an insult.
But if someone else in the royal halls would curse me,
one of your brothers or sisters or brothers’ wives
trailing their long robes, even your own mother—
not your father, always kind as my own father—
why, you’d restrain them with words, Hector,
you’d win them to my side ...
you with your gentle temper, all your gentle words.
And so in the same breath I moum for you and me,
my doom-struck, harrowed heart! Now there is no one left
in the wide realm of Troy, no friend to treat me kindly—
all the countrymen cringe from me in loathing!”
Her voice rang out in tears and vast throngs wailed
and old King Priam rose and gave his people orders:
“Now, you men of Troy, haul timber into the city!
Have no fear of an Argive ambush packed with danger—
Achilles vowed, when he sent me home from the black ships,
not to do us harm till the twelfth dawn arrives.”
At his command they harnessed oxen and mules to wagons,
they assembled before the city walls with all good speed
and for nine days hauled in a boundless store of timber.
But when the tenth Dawn brought light to the mortal world
they carried gallant Hector forth, weeping tears,
and they placed his corpse aloft the pyre’s crest,
flung a torch and set it all aflame.
At last,
when young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more,
the people massed around illustrious Hector’s pyre ...
And once they’d gathered, crowding the meeting grounds,
they first put out the fires with glistening wine,
wherever the flames still burned in all their fury.
Then they collected the white bones of Hector—
all his brothers, his friends-in-arms, mourning,
and warm tears came streaming down their cheeks.
They placed the bones they found in a golden chest,
shrouding them round and round in soft purple cloths.
They quickly lowered the chest in a deep, hollow grave
and over it piled a cope of huge stones closely set,
then hastily heaped a barrow, posted lookouts all around
for fear the Achaean combat troops would launch their attack
before the time agreed. And once they’d heaped the mound
they turned back home to Troy, and gathering once again
they shared a splendid funeral feast in Hector’s honor,
held in the house of Priam, king by will of Zeus.
And so the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses.
NOTES
THE GENEALOGY OF THE ROYAL HOUSE OF TROY
TEXTUAL VARIANTS FROM THE OXFORD CLASSICAL TEXT
NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION
(Here and throughout the Pronouncing Glossary that follows, line numbers refer to the translation, where the line numbers of the Greek text will be found at the top of every page.)
1.1 Goddess: the Muse who personifies the inspiration for epic poetry.
1.1 Peleus’ son Achilles: Achilles is the son of a mortal father and a divine mother, the sea goddess Thetis. Zeus was once in love with her but was warned that she would bear a son stronger than his father. So it was decided that she should wed a mortal. (See 18.97-101, 504-7, 24.72-76, 625-27, and note 24.35-36.) She later departed from Peleus, however, and went to live with her father, the Old Man of the Sea. According to one legend, she had attempted to make Achilles immortal by dipping him, as a child, in the water of the river Styx. But the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable, and it was there that later the arrow of Paris found its mark. See notes 19.494, 24.545.
1.45 Smintheus: ancient commentators disagreed about the meaning of this name of Apollo. Some derived it from Sminthe, a nearby town; others from the Mysian (non-Greek) word (sminthos) = mouse, and it is known that there was a festival in Rhodes called Smintheia, in honor of Apollo and Dionysus because they were thought to kill the mice that damaged the new vines.
1.53 The arrows clanged at his back: the arrows of Apollo are a metaphor for the onset of a plague.
1.273 This scepter: the scepter is passed by the heralds to anyone in the assembly who wishes to speak—while he holds it, he has the floor. It is a symbol of royal and divine authority, and also stands for the rule of law and due process in the community. It is not the same as Agamemnon’s own royal scepter (2.118-26), which has come down to him from Zeus through several generations of Argive kings.
1.312 Centaurs: the Centaurs were a race of (literally) horse-men: half horse, half man. They were feared for their violence—all except one, Chiron, who was a healer and taught many heroes (see 4.2 51-52), including Achilles (see 11. 992-94), the arts of medicine.
1.470-83 Your claims in father’s halls: this story of the near defeat of Zeus by Hera, Poseidon and Athena (incidentally, they are the three gods most passionately hostile to Troy in the Iliad) is unique in the rich variety of myths about the Olympian gods in that Zeus is almost defeated. It seems likely that Homer invented the story himself, to provide Thetis with a claim on Zeus’s gratitude.
1.505 Ocean River: in the Homeric imagination, Ocean is a river that, rising from sources in the west, encircles the whole world. All the rivers of the world flow from it, connected often by subterranean channels. See Introduction, p. 63.