No pity yet showed Hector, for he stripped off the armour of Achilles from the body of Patroclus that he might wear it himself. But Zeus, as he looked upon the haughty victor, was displeased.
‘Ah, hapless man,’ said the god to himself, ‘no thought is in thy heart of death that yet draweth nigh unto thee; thou doest on thee the divine armour of a peerless man before whom the rest have terror. His comrade, gentle and brave, thou hast slain, and unmeetly hast stripped the armour from his head and shoulders.’
The immortal horses of Achilles wept when they knew that Patroclus was slain. Automedon lashed them, he spoke kindly to them, yet would they not move. As a pillar on a tomb, so they stood yoked to the chariot. From their eyes big teardrops fell, their beautiful heads hung down with grief so that their long manes were trailed in the dust. Thus sorely did the immortal steeds grieve for the death of Patroclus.
CHAPTER XV
THE DEATH OF HECTOR
Fierce and long raged the battle around the body of Patroclus. And while the armies fought, a messenger hastened to the tent of Achilles to tell him that his comrade was slain and that the Trojans fought for his body as it lay naked on the ground, stripped of its armour. ‘Thy armour,’ said the messenger, ‘Hector has taken for himself.’
When Achilles heard the bitter tidings he took dust and poured it with both hands upon his head. ‘As he thought thereon, he shed big tears, now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face, and then anon he would rise upon his feet, and roam wildly beside the beach of the salt sea.’ As he cried aloud in his grief his mother, Thetis, heard in her home beneath the sea. Swiftly she sped to her son that she might learn why he wept.
Achilles told her all that had befallen Patroclus, and how he himself cared no longer to live, save only that he might slay Hector who had killed his friend.
Thetis bade her son wait but till the morrow before he went to battle, and she would bring him armour made by the great Fire-god.
Then she left him and prayed the god Hephaestus, keeper of the forge, to give her armour for her dear son.