and all the Greeks followed after him. So they pursued, slaying
as they went, and the Scaean gate was choked with the crowd of men,
pursuing and pursued. In that hour would the Greeks have entered Troy,
and burned the city, and taken the women captive, but Paris stood on the
tower above the gate, and in his mind was anger for the death of his
brother Hector. He tried the string of his bow, and found it frayed, for
all day he had showered his arrows on the Greeks; so he chose a new
bowstring, and fitted it, and strung the bow, and chose an arrow from
his quiver, and aimed at the ankle of Achilles, where it was bare
beneath the greave, or leg-guard of metal, that the God had fashioned
for him. Through the ankle flew the arrow, and Achilles wheeled round,
weak as he was, and stumbled, and fell, and the armour that the God had
wrought was defiled with dust and blood.

Then Achilles rose again, and cried: 'What coward has smitten me with a
secret arrow from afar? Let him stand forth and meet me with sword and
spear!' So speaking he seized the shaft with his strong hands and tore
it out of the wound, and much blood gushed, and darkness came over his
eyes. Yet he staggered forward, striking blindly, and smote Orythaon, a
dear friend of Hector, through the helmet, and others he smote, but now
his force failed him, and he leaned on his spear, and cried his warcry,
and said, 'Cowards of Troy, ye shall not all escape my spear, dying as I
am.' But as he spoke he fell, and all his armour rang around him, yet
the Trojans stood apart and watched; and as hunters watch a dying lion
not daring to go nigh him, so the Trojans stood in fear till Achilles
drew his latest breath. Then from the wall the Trojan women raised a
great cry of joy over him who had slain the noble Hector: and thus was
fulfilled the prophecy of Hector, that Achilles should fall in the
Scaean gateway, by the hand of Paris.

Then the best of the Trojans rushed forth from the gate to seize the
body of Achilles, and his glorious armour, but the Greeks were as eager
to carry the body to the ships that it might have due burial. Round the
dead Achilles men fought long and sore, and both sides were mixed,
Greeks and Trojans, so that men dared not shoot arrows from the walls of
Troy lest they should kill their own friends. Paris, and Aeneas, and
Glaucus, who had been the friend of Sarpedon, led the Trojans, and Aias
and Ulysses led the Greeks, for we are not told that Agamemno