Black Ships Before Troy

Hector’s mother Hecuba and his wife Andromache learn of Hector’s death. They are overcome with grief, even more so when they learn of what has happened with Hector’s body. The lack of a proper burial is “worse than [being] slain, for lacking proper burial rites, he would not pass free to realms of Hades, but must wander lonely and uncomforted in the borderlands between the living and the dead” (85).

Patroclus’s ghost comes to Achilles that night in a dream, begging to be buried properly. Achilles tries to embrace him, but Patroclus is gone. Achilles immediately gets Patroclus’s pyre ready. All those who mourn Patroclus cut off locks of their hair to scatter over him; Achilles hacks off his own head of hair and places it in Patroclus’s hands. He kills and offers up cattle, horses, hounds, and Trojan captives to burn on the pyre with Patroclus. After he is burned, Achilles has his ashes places in a “two-handled cup” that they often drank from (86); he lowers this cup into a stone chamber on the ground and orders that “when he also was dead, they should mingle his ashes with the ashes of his friend in the same cup” (87). The Greeks partake in funeral games in Patroclus’s honor: a chariot race, boxing match, foot race, and spear fight.

None of this satisfied Achilles’s grief, and he drives Hector’s bound body around Patroclus’s grave mound for twelve nights and days. Apollo protects Hector’s body so that no further harm comes to it. The gods watch in anger as Achilles dishonors them all with his madness and agree to stop him.

The gods send Thetis to speak to Achilles about his treatment of Hector’s body, and her words breaks through his madness. The gods send a messenger to King Priam, encouraging him to offer Achilles a ransom for Hector’s body. Hermes casts a spell of sleep onto the Greeks, letting Priam enter their camp and beg Achilles to release Hector’s body. The elderly Priam beseeches Achilles to think how his own father would feel if the situation were reversed. Achilles is kind to Priam and agrees to release Hector’s body; “they wept, both of them together, Priam for his son, and Achilles for his father and for Patroclus his friend” (93).

Priam returns to Troy with Hector’s body. Andromache and Hecuba mourn Hector as Priam’s men collect wood for the pyre. It takes nine days for them to collect the resources required. After Hector’s body burns, “they took the ashes and charred bones and wrapped them in fine purple cloth, weeping all the while” (95). Hector’s ashes are then placed in a golden box and buried. For eleven days afterwards, a truce holds, after which Troy holds a feast in Hector’s honor.

The Trojans keep a sacred “a black stone shaped like Athene’s shield, which had fallen from heaven long ago” (98) in the high citadel of Athene—they call it the Palladium or “the Luck of Troy.” The Trojans believe that the Palladium keeps their enemies outside their walls. Odysseus decides to steal the Palladium in order to demoralize the Trojans. Odysseus’s plan ostensibly requires the three daughters of a king from the island of Delos, who have special abilities: turning water into wine, stones into bread, and mud into olive oil. Odysseus asks Agamemnon for a ship to go and fetch these young women.

Instead, Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar and allows himself to be beaten and attacked by the Greeks. Helen shows pity on him and asks the Trojan guards to let him in. When she speaks to him, she discovers his real identity and reveals that Paris has gone to fetch allies—King Memnon and the Amazons, a “strong war-band of women warriors” (97)—to help the Trojans. Odysseus swears to Helen that he will tell no one what she has told him, and that when the Greeks prevail, that he will return her honorably to Menelaus. Helen gives to Odysseus a gift—a sleeping draft.

Odysseus remains in the city for days. When everyone grows used to him, he goes to Athene’s temple and gives the sleeping draft to the high priestess. Odysseus then steals the Palladium, leaves Troy, and makes for the Greeks’ camp. The men are surprised because the ship Odysseus supposedly took to Delos still has not returned. While the Greeks celebrate, the Trojans mourn the loss of the sacred stone.

The Amazons are “a tribe of women warriors who lived far away, in the lands watered by the river Thermodon” (109). They are the daughters of Ares, the god of war, and can match any man in combat. Their young queen Penthesilea accidentally killed her sister Hippolyta while hunting; to atone, she wishes to die in battle. The Trojans welcome the Amazons and Penthesilea with much celebration and glory. Priam holds a feast where Penthesilea declares that she will be the one to kill Achilles. Andromache thinks this is foolish: If Hector could not best Achilles, how could she?

After a single night in Troy, Penthesilea leads the Trojans and the Amazons into battle on the plain. The Amazons ride on horseback instead of in chariots like the Greeks and Trojans. The Amazons die in scores, and when Penthesilea swears to kill Ajax and Achilles, her spear does not even dent their armor. Achilles kills her, but upon seeing her dead, he weeps. The Greeks return all the dead Amazons to Priam for honorable burial. They are burned on a pyre and their ashes are buried in the mound “of one of Troy’s long-dead kings” (113).