Book 22
- Created by: lilleybee
- Created on: 02-06-17 14:57
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- The Trojans retreat within the city while Apollo distracts Achilleus and Hektor remains outside.
- Apollo reveals himself to Achilleus, mocking him for not realising who he was.
- Achilleus responds angrily, dishonoured that he has missed out on killing all the Trojans who are now safe and wishing he could take revenge upon Apollo.
- Priam sees Achilleus approaching Troy, and he begins to lament and beg Hektor to come back inside.
- Priam laments that Achilleus has killed many of his sons, and imagines his future when he has no children left, all his daughters have been taken away as slaves and he ends up by his own dogs.
- He is in despair that he will die tragically, alone and old, rather than a young glorious man dying in battle.
- Hekabe also pleads with Hektor, appealing to him as his mother and says that if Achilleus kills Hektor then they will not be able to give him a proper burial, instead the dogs in the Greek camp will mutilate his body.
- Hektor is not swayed and waits for Achilleus, but is deliberating in turmoil whether to go back inside or not.
- He is afraid that people will blame him and think badly of him, especially Poulydamas whose good plan he rejected for his own terrible plan.
- He wonders whether to go to Achilleus and promise to give Helen back, make the Trojans make an oath to divide all the city’s wealth and give it away, and beg for mercy.
- He decides that Achilleus would not take pity on him or Troy and would just kill him unarmed and ingloriously.
- Achilleus approaches, Hektor sees him and is afraid, and runs.
- They run past the land marks of the Trojan landscape, a fig-tree where Andromache had asked Hektor to position the army, and the river Skamandros, where women wash clothes.
- Homer describes the detail of the rivers here, that one spring runs with hot water and the other cold all year round.
- Homer compares the their running to a footrace, but points out that they are running for a much greater prize than the usual: the life of Hektor.
- Zeus laments whether to save Hektors life or not, favouring Hektor for his piety and honour.
- Athene rebukes him for trying to save a man who is fated to die, and Zeus says that he will not intervene.
- Athene goes down to the city of Troy.
- Achilleus still pursues Hektor and shakes his head at the watching at the watching Achaians to stop them from trying to shoot Hektor and win the glory, also stopping Hektor from getting too close to the Trojan wall (where he might be saved by a Trojan on the wall shooting at Achilleus) by remaining closer to the wall himself and cutting Hektor off from his city.
- Zeus weighs the fates of both Achilleus and Hektor and observes Hektor’s fate sink down on the scales into Hades.
- Athene shows herself to Achilleus…
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