For twelve days did the Greek host rejoice, and all through the days Hector’s body lay unburied. For at the heels of swift horses had the Greeks dragged him to the ships, while from the battlements his mother and his wife Andromache watched, wailing in agony, with hearts that broke.
The shadow of death came down upon Hector (page [ 116])
Then at length went old Priam to the camp of the Greeks. And before Achilles he fell, beseeching him to have mercy and to give him back the body of his son.
So was the heart of Achilles moved, and the body of Hector ransomed; and with wailing of women did the people of Troy welcome home their hero.
Over him lamented his old mother, for of all her sons was he to her most dear, and over him wept, with burning tears, his wife Andromache.
And to his bier came Helen, and with breaking heart did she sob forth her sorrow.
‘Dearest of my brothers,’ she said, ‘from thee have I heard neither reproach nor evil word. With kind words and gentle heart hast thou ever stood by me. Lost, lost is my one true friend. No more in Troyland is any left to pity me.’
On lofty funeral pyre then laid they the dead Hector, and when the flames had consumed his body his comrades placed his white bones in a golden urn, and over it with great stones did they raise a mighty mound that all might see where he rested.
Yet still was the warfare between Greeks and Trojans not ended.