Brief Summary Of Achilles And The Loss Of Hector

Summary: Achilles becomes aware that Apollo has tricked him and rushes back towards Troy. Hector, despite urging from his father and a quite disturbing display from his mother, refuses to hide from Achilles any longer. Hector considers trying to reason with Achilles by surrendering Helen but realizes that he would be killed anyway. As Achilles approaches, Hector runs from him instead, being pursued by Achilles while he runs around the walls of Troy three times. Zeus is about to assist Hector but Athena stops him before taking the form of Hector’s brother and convincing Hector that the two of them can defeat Achilles. Athena tricks Hector into losing his spear and arms Achilles with his spear again. As Hector tries to attack Achilles, he gets …show more content…
The gods are very angry about what has transpired and mourn the loss of Hector since he faithfully often sacrificed to the gods. After calming Hera, Zeus has Iris fetch Thetis. When Thetis arrives, she is instructed by Zeus to make sure that Achilles has the body returned to Priam. Having returned to Achilles, Thetis warns him of the gods’ anger and reminds him of his soon death. Iris tells Priam to bring gifts and to go alone, minus an older herald to help with the mules. As Priam prepares his wagon, his wife, Hecuba, begs him to reconsider. She hates Achilles so much that she remarks of how she wishes to eat Achilles’ liver, while still raw, in order to avenge what happened to Hector. As Priam takes his wagon, Trojans gather to watch but are sent away by Priam and continues to denounce his sons as liars and says that they should have died, not Hector. While Priam and his wagon driver, Idaeus, are watering their mules, they see Hermes who is disguised as Achilles aide. Hermes tells Priam that the body of his son is doing well and leads them safely to Achilles before vanishing. Priam comes to Achilles as a heartbroken father and tearfully recounts his sorrows that his best son is dead, commenting on how of his 50 sons, only Hector could defend Troy, and has brought much treasure to get the body from Achilles. …show more content…
The fact that they virtually forced Achilles to return the body to his father and see that Hector was given a proper burial is proof that either the gods respected Hector enough because of his sacrifices for them to care, or they genuinely cared about him and wanted him to have the burial he deserved. Regardless of which motive caused the gods to do what they did, they were sad to see Hector die and directly intervened in the form of Hermes leading Priam to Achilles safely. Reading of the anger experienced by Priam and Hecuba is interesting in how they dealt with it. The fact that Hecuba directed her anger directly at Achilles for Hector’s death shows a semi-blind rage erupting from her, with her disregarding all facts aside from the fact that her son is dead and Achilles is the killer. Priam deals with it in a different light, wishing that one of his other children would have died instead, sad, yet not entirely non-understandable. The emotions that Priam has overflows when he meets Achilles and is reciprocated by him for very similar reasons: they have both lost someone very near and dear to them. This common sense of loss allows Priam and Achilles to share a meal together without hostility and even talk of ceasing the fight for almost two weeks for someone that Achilles hated and wanted dead, which he accomplished, and just shows how powerful and intense human emotions can be to the point that