keep back the battle from the City
so that thou mayst make the funeral in peace." "For nine days we would
watch beside Hector's body and lament for him; on the tenth day we would
have the funeral; on the eleventh day we would make the barrow over him,
and on the twelfth day we would fight," King Priam said. "Even for
twelve days I will hold the battle back from the City," said Achilles.'

'Then Priam and his henchman went to rest. But in the middle of the
night the young man who had guided him to the hut of Achilles--the god
Hermes he was--appeared before his bed and bade him arise and go to the
wagon and yoke the mules and drive back to the City with the body of
Hector. Priam aroused his henchman and they went out and yoked the mules
and mounted the wagon, and with Hermes to guide them they drove back to
the City.'

'And Achilles on his bed thought of his own fate--how he too would die
in battle, and how for him there would be no father to make lament. But
he would be laid where he had asked his friends to lay him--beside
Patroklos--and over them both the Greeks would raise a barrow that would
be wondered at in after times.'

[Illustration]

'So Achilles thought. And afterwards the arrow fired by Paris struck him
as he fought before the gate of the City, and he was slain even on the
place where he slew Hector. But the Greeks carried off his body and his
armour and brought them back to the ships. And Achilles was lamented
over, though not by old Peleus, his father. From the depths of the sea
came Thetis, his goddess-mother, and with her came the Maidens of the
Sea. They covered the body of Achilles with wonderful raiment and over
it they lamented for seventeen days and seventeen nights. On the
eighteenth day he was laid in the grave beside Patroklos, his dear
friend, and over them both the Greeks raised a barrow that was wondered
at in the after-times.'

XXI

Now Hector's sister was the first to see her father coming in the dawn
across the plain of Troy with the wagon upon which his body was laid.
She came down to the City and she cried through the streets, "O men and
women of Troy, ye who often went to the gates to meet Hector coming back
with victory, come now to the gates to receive Hector dead."'

'Then every man and woman in the City took themselves outside the gate.
And they brought in the wagon upon which Hector was laid, and all day
from the early dawn to the going down of the sun they wailed for h