This is an excerpt from Homer's The Iliad in book twenty four. This particular version was translated by Samuel Butler and is available here. The following sequence is a conversation between King Priam and Achilles where the king is negotiating with Achilles for the body of his son, whom Achilles had killed previously in combat. This conflict is the main focus of this epic poem. It pits the Achaeans (Greeks) against the Trojans. Achilles is the main hero of the Greek forces and King Priam is the ruler of Troy. The Greeks sieged the city of troy for a period of years. The Trojan chief hero, Hector, has killed Achilles’s best friend throwing Achilles into a rage. He exacted his revenge against the Trojans and eventually killed Hector. Achilles then took the body and desecrated it and tied it behind his chariot and rode around the Trojan city day after day displaying his kill. The gods at this point intervene and instruct King Priam to travel to the Greek camps to reclaim hector’s body. King had been escorted through his enemies’ camp to the tents of Achilles by the goddess Iris as commanded by Jupiter. Achilles has also been contacted by the divines instructing him to return the body. Achilles has just invited king Priam into his tent and bid him be seated.


And Priam answered, "O king, bid me not be seated, while Hector is still lying uncared for in your tents, but accept the great ransom which I have brought you, and give him to me at once that I may look upon him. May you prosper with the ransom and reach your own land in safety, seeing that you have suffered me to live and to look upon the light of the sun."

Achilles looked at him sternly and said, "Vex me, sir, no longer; I am of myself minded to give up the body of Hector. My mother, daughter of the old man of the sea, came to me from Jove to bid me deliver it to you. Moreover I know well, O Priam, and you cannot hide it, that some god has brought you to the ships of the Achaeans, for else, no man however strong and in his prime would dare to come to our host; he could neither pass our guard unseen, nor draw the bolt of my gates thus easily; therefore, provoke me no further, lest I sin against the word of Jove, and suffer you not, suppliant though you are, within my tents."

The old man feared him and obeyed. Then the son of Peleus sprang like a lion through the door of his house, not alone, but with him went his two squires Automedon and Alcimus who were closer to him than any others of his comrades now that Patroclus was no more. These unyoked the horses and mules, and bade Priam's herald and attendant be seated within the house. They lifted the ransom for Hector's body from the waggon. but they left two mantles and a goodly shirt, that Achilles might wrap the body in them when he gave it to be taken home. Then he called to his servants and ordered them to wash the body and anoint it, but he first took it to a place where Priam should not see it, lest if he did so, he should break out in the bitterness of his grief, and enrage Achilles, who might then kill him and sin against the word of Jove. When the servants had washed the body and anointed it, and had wrapped it in a fair shirt and mantle, Achilles himself lifted it on to a bier, and he and his men then laid it on the waggon. He cried aloud as he did so and called on the name of his dear comrade, "Be not angry with me, Patroclus," he said, "if you hear even in the house of Hades that I have given Hector to his father for a ransom. It has been no unworthy one, and I will share it equitably with you."

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