e of being able to cut
your flesh into pieces and eat it raw, for the ill you have done me, as
I am that nothing shall save you from the dogs--it shall not be, though
they bring ten or twenty-fold ransom and weigh it out for me on the
spot, with promise of yet more hereafter. Though Priam son of Dardanus
should bid them offer me your weight in gold, even so your mother shall
never lay you out and make lament over the son she bore, but dogs and
vultures shall eat you utterly up."

Hector with his dying breath then said, "I know you what you are, and
was sure that I should not move you, for your heart is hard as iron;
look to it that I bring not heaven's anger upon you on the day when
Paris and Phoebus Apollo, valiant though you be, shall slay you at the
Scaean gates."

When he had thus said the shrouds of death enfolded him, whereon his
soul went out of him and flew down to the house of Hades, lamenting its
sad fate that it should enjoy youth and strength no longer. But
Achilles said, speaking to the dead body, "Die; for my part I will
accept my fate whensoever Jove and the other gods see fit to send it."

As he spoke he drew his spear from the body and set it on one side;
then he stripped the blood-stained armour from Hector's shoulders while
the other Achaeans came running up to view his wondrous strength and
beauty; and no one came near him without giving him a fresh wound. Then
would one turn to his neighbour and say, "It is easier to handle Hector
now than when he was flinging fire on to our ships"--and as he spoke he
would thrust his spear into him anew.

When Achilles had done spoiling Hector of his armour, he stood among
the Argives and said, "My friends, princes and counsellors of the
Argives, now that heaven has vouchsafed us to overcome this man, who
has done us more hurt than all the others together, consider whether we
should not attack the city in force, and discover in what mind the
Trojans may be. We should thus learn whether they will desert their
city now that Hector has fallen, or will still hold out even though he
is no longer living. But why argue with myself in this way, while
Patroclus is still lying at the ships unburied, and unmourned--he whom
I can never forget so long as I am alive and my strength fails not?
Though men forget their dead when once they are within the house of
Hades, yet not even there will I forget the comrade whom I have lost.
Now, therefore, Achaean youths, let us raise th