Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

For days Achilles dragged Hector’s body around Patroclus’s tomb; Apollo kept the flesh from corruption. On Olympus Apollo argued for release; Hera, Athena, and Poseidon resisted until Zeus ruled that Thetis must tell Achilles to accept ransom, and Iris must send Priam under divine escort. Thetis found her son still weeping and spoke Zeus’s will; Achilles agreed. Iris told Priam to go alone but for an aged herald, with gifts, fearing nothing. Hecuba tried to stop him; Priam would not listen. He prayed to Zeus; an eagle omen answered. Hermes, in a young man’s likeness, met the wagon at dark, lulled the sentries, opened the gates of Achilles’ compound, and revealed himself as guide before departing. Priam clasped Achilles’ knees and kissed the terrible man-slaying hands that had killed so many of his sons, and begged by Achilles’ own father Peleus for Hector’s body. Both wept—Achilles for Peleus and Patroclus, Priam for Hector. Achilles raised him, praised his courage, had the servants wash and shroud Hector out of Priam’s sight lest anger flare, and loaded the corpse on the wagon, keeping only one cloak and tunic for the covering. He promised a pause of fighting for the funeral—nine days of mourning and gathering wood, burial on the tenth, barrow on the eleventh, war again on the twelfth. They shared a meal; Priam slept in the porch. Hermes woke him before dawn to slip away before Agamemnon knew. Cassandra saw them returning; the city cried out. Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen led the laments—Helen remembering Hector’s kindness. On the tenth day they burned Hector; on the eleventh they heaped his mound. So the *Iliad* closes: not with Troy’s fall, but with a father’s ransom, a warrior’s pity, and a city’s brief hush to bury its defender.