gives orders to have the body clothed in costly raiment, and washed and anointed by the handmaidens; nay, even lifts his dead enemy with his own hands, and lays him on a couch. Yet he will not let Priam as yet look upon the corpse, lest at the sight of his grief his own passion should break out afresh. The father spends the night in the tent of his son's slayer, and there he closes his eyes in sleep for the first time since the day of Hector's death. In the morning he returns to Troy with his mournful burden, and the funeral rites of Hector close the poem. The boon which Achilles has granted he makes complete by the spontaneous offer of twelve days' truce, that so Troy may bury her dead hero with his rightful honours. The wailings of Priam and Hecuba, though naturally expressed, are but commonplace compared with the last tribute of the remorseful Helen:—
"Hector, of all my brethren dearest thou!
True, godlike Paris claims me as his wife,
Who bore me hither—would I then had died!
But twenty years have passed since here I came,
And left my native land; yet ne'er from thee
I heard one scornful, one degrading word;
And when from others I have borne reproach,
Thy brothers, sister, or thy brothers' wives,
Or mother (for thy sire was ever kind
Even as a father), thou hast checked them still
With tender feeling and with gentle words.
For thee I weep, and for myself no less,
For through the breadth of Troy none love me now,
None kindly look on me, but all abhor." (D.)
