, or talents, of gold, and chose a beautiful golden cup, and he
called nine of his sons, Paris, and Helenus, and Deiphobus, and the
rest, saying, 'Go, ye bad sons, my shame; would that Hector lived and
all of you were dead!' for sorrow made him angry; 'go, and get ready for
me a wain, and lay on it these treasures.' So they harnessed mules to
the wain, and placed in it the treasures, and, after praying, Priam
drove through the night to the hut of Achilles. In he went, when no man
looked for him, and kneeled to Achilles, and kissed his terrible
death-dealing hands. 'Have pity on me, and fear the Gods, and give me
back my dead son,' he said, 'and remember thine own father. Have pity on
me, who have endured to do what no man born has ever done before, to
kiss the hands that slew my sons.'

Then Achilles remembered his own father, far away, who now was old and
weak: and he wept, and Priam wept with him, and then Achilles raised
Priam from his knees and spoke kindly to him, admiring how beautiful he
still was in his old age, and Priam himself wondered at the beauty of
Achilles. And Achilles thought how Priam had long been rich and happy,
like his own father, Peleus, and now old age and weakness and sorrow
were laid upon both of them, for Achilles knew that his own day of death
was at hand, even at the doors. So Achilles bade the women make ready
the body of Hector for burial, and they clothed him in a white mantle
that Priam had brought, and laid him in the wain; and supper was made
ready, and Priam and Achilles ate and drank together, and the women
spread a bed for Priam, who would not stay long, but stole away back to
Troy while Achilles was asleep.

All the women came out to meet him, and to lament for Hector. They
carried the body into the house of Andromache and laid it on a bed, and
the women gathered around, and each in turn sang her song over the great
dead warrior. His mother bewailed him, and his wife, and Helen of the
fair hands, clad in dark mourning raiment, lifted up her white arms, and
said: 'Hector, of all my brethren in Troy thou wert the dearest, since
Paris brought me hither. Would that ere that day I had died! For this is
now the twentieth year since I came, and in all these twenty years never
heard I a word from thee that was bitter and unkind; others might
upbraid me, thy sisters or thy mother, for thy father was good to me as
if he had been my own; but then thou wouldst restrain them that spoke
evil b