Characters
- Automedon — prepare the corpse and meal
- Dardanus — suppliant; kisses Achilles’ hands; wins Hector back
- Hecuba — washed, shrouded, loaded for Troy
- Lyssa — guide who withdraws before the meeting
- Patroclus — remembered in Achilles’ grief
- Peleus — invoked as Achilles’ father (absent)
- Trojan assembly — weeps; accepts ransom; returns the body; hosts the meal
Places
- Achilles’ shelter in the Achaean camp — scene of supplication
- Porch of the shelter — Priam’s bed before the dawn escape
- Wagon — carries Hector toward Troy
Themes
Narrative
Hermes left Priam at Achilles’ threshold. The old king entered unseen, clasped Achilles’ knees, and kissed the man-slaying hands that had killed so many of his sons. He begged by Peleus—Achilles’ own aging father—for Hector’s body, offering ransom. Achilles remembered Peleus and Patroclus; both men wept, Priam for Hector, Achilles for father and companion. Achilles raised Priam, seated him, and warned him not to rouse fresh anger by looking on Hector too soon.
He had servants wash and anoint the corpse out of Priam’s sight, shroud it, and load it on the wagon, keeping one cloak for the covering. He promised twelve days’ pause for the funeral. They shared a meal; Achilles had a bed made for Priam in the porch. The clasp and shared tears are the *Iliad*’s moral climax: enemy-slayer and bereaved father recognize a common human measure before the body goes home.