Characters
- Dardanus — pleads from the wall for Hector to enter
- Hecuba — alone outside the gates; held by shame and fear of reproach
- Lyssa — weighs the two fates; Hector’s pan sinks
- People of Crisa — abandons Hector once the scale is cast
- Polydamas — remembered adviser whose rejected counsel haunts Hector
- Trojan assembly — approaches in divine armor after the decoy chase
Places
- Assembly — approach of Achilles
- Underworld — Zeus’s scales of destiny
- Walls of Troy — Hector’s solitary station
Themes
Narrative
While Achilles is still chasing Apollo’s decoy, the Trojans find safety inside the walls—all but Hector. He waits alone before the Scaean Gates, fixed by shame. Priam sees Achilles coming like the Dog Star and begs his son to enter: Achilles has already bereaved him of many sons; if Hector dies, Troy’s last stay falls. Hecuba bares her breast and pleads by the nurture he drank. Hector hears and does not obey.
His resolve is tangled with memory of Polydamas, who had urged retreat to the city on the night of Achilles’ return—counsel Hector rejected, costing the army dearly. Better, he thinks, to face Achilles now than hear some lesser man reproach him for destroying the host by his stubbornness. He waits as Achilles approaches in the armor Hephaestus made.
Zeus pities Hector and weighs the fates of the two men in golden scales; Hector’s destined day sinks. Apollo then leaves him. Athena races to Achilles’ side with divine favor. The solitary wait thus ends not in a fair open choice but in cosmic verdict: shame keeps Hector outside; the scales and the gods seal what shame began. The chase around the walls and Athena’s Deiphobus-trick follow (04/115 and 04/026).