The Iliad Hector Quotes

Down in a mass the Trojans pounded – Hector led them in,
charging in as a heavy surf roars in against the rip
at a river’s mouth, swelled with rains from Zeus,
and on either side the jutting headlands bellow back
at the booming sea with matching thunder – in they came,
the Trojans roaring in.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 17, lines 298-303. Hector leads the Trojan attack against the Achaeans guarding the body of Patroclus. An epic simile compares the onslaught of the Trojan army to a huge wave roaring into the mouth of a river swelled by rains from the god Zeus.

but on they came, assaulting the rear, two in the lead,
Aeneas the son of Anchises flanking glorious Hector.
Flying before them now like clouds of crows or starlings
screaming murder, seeing a falcon dive in for the kill,
the hawk that wings grim death at smaller birds –
so pursued by Aeneas and Hector Argive fighters
raced, screaming death-cries, lust for battle lost
and masses of fine armor littered both sides of the trench
as the Argives fled in fear.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 17, lines 844-852. Aeneas and Hector lead the Trojan assault from the rear, as Menelaus and Meriones rescue Patroclus’s body from the battlefield. The scene is compared in an epic simile to a hawk diving in for the kill, and clouds of small birds flying off screaming murder.

But now, since I shall not return to my fatherland…
nor did I bring one ray of hope to my Patroclus,
nor to the rest of all my steadfast comrades,
countless ranks struck down by mighty Hector –
No, no, here I sit by the ships…
a useless, dead weight on the good green earth.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 118-123. Achilles in despair, cries to his mother Thetis, that he could not save his friend Patroclus from his doom. He feels complicit through his inaction and refusal to fight, in the deaths of Patroclus and the other comrades at the hands of Hector.

Yes, my son, you’re right. No coward’s work,
to save your exhausted friends from headlong death.
But your own handsome war-gear lies in Trojan hands,
bronze and burnished – and Hector in that flashing helmet,
Hector glorifies in your armor, strapped across his back.
Not that he will glory in it long, I tell you:
his own destruction hovers near him now. Wait –
don’t fling yourself in the grind of battle yet,
not till you see me coming back with your own eyes.
Tomorrow I will return to you with the rising sun,
bearing splendid arms from Hephaestus, god of fire!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 152-162. There is a close relationship between Thetis and her son Achilles. When he vows to return to the war effort and confront Hector, the killer of his friend, Thestis shows how love and protectiveness. She tells him to stay out of the battle until the next dawn, when she will return with splendid new arms fashioned by the god Hephaestus. Hector may be glorifying in Achilles’s armor, but he won’t glory in it for long, she says – foreshadowing the Trojan warrior’s own death.

The god of war is impartial:
he hands out death to the man who hands out death.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 359-360. Hector to Polydamas, who suggests at a Trojan war council that the army remain in the city to fight off any Achaean attack as the return of Achilles makes it too dangerous to battle in the open. Hector rejects this advice, saying he will never run and will stand up to Achilles. In this passage Hector refers to war god Ares as he rallies the Trojan soldiers. He tells them to collect their possessions from the battlefield, eat, and camp outside the Trojan walls for another night before they attack the next morning.

And Achilles led them now in a throbbing chant of sorrow,
laying his man-killing hands on his great friend’s chest,
convulsed with bursts of grief. Like a bearded lion
whose pride of cubs a deer-hunter has snatched away,
out of some thick woods, and back he comes, too late.
and his heart breaks but he courses after the hunter.
hot on his tracks down glen on twisting glen –
where can he find him? – gripped by piercing rage.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 367-374. Achilles mourns the death of his close friend Patroclus. Gripped by rage and in an epic simile compared to a lion whose pride of young have been snatched away by a hunter, he vows revenge against Hector.

If it really was Achilles who reared beside the ships,
all the worse for him – if he wants his fill of war.
I for one, I’ll never run from his grim assault,
I’ll stand up to the man – see if he bears off glory
or I bear it off myself!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 355-359. Hector is aware of Achilles’s brilliance in battle, but that does not deter him from heroically charging forth. The greatest glory awaits one of the two heroes, he believes, and Hector chooses not to run from it but to stay and fight for it. Hector’s pride is one of his strengths that make him a great warrior, but it also a weakness that will lead to his downfall.

Well I know you are brave, and I am far weaker.
True – but all lies in the lap of the great gods.
Weaker I am, but I still might take your life
with one hurl of a spear – my weapon can cut too,
Long before now its point has found its mark!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 20, lines 492-496. Seeing his brother killed by Achilles, Hector charges charges forward and says this to Achilles, who taunts him, saying that he is rushing to his death. As underdog Hecor admits that Achilles is brave and he is weaker, but eveything lies in the lap of the gods and with one hurt of his spear he might kill Achilles.

So the illustrious son of Priam begged for life
but only heard a merciless voice in answer: "Fool,
don’t talk to me of ransom. No more speeches.
Before Patroclus met his day of destiny, true,
it warmed my heart a bit to spare some Trojans:
droves I took alive and auctioned off as slaves.
But now not a single Trojan flees his death,
not one the gods hand over to me before your gates,
none of all the Trojans, sons of Priam least of all!"

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 21, lines 110-118. Lycaon, half brother to Hector and son of Priam, pleads with Achilles for his life. But an unforgiving Achilles is full of rage and hatred for the Trojans over the death of his friend Patroclus at the hands of Hector that he has no intention of sparing any son of Priam.

Courage, Achilles! Why such fear, such terror?
Not with a pair like us to urge you on – gods-in-arms
sent down with Zeus’s blessings, I and Pallas Athena.
It’s not your fate to be swallowed by a river:
he’ll subside, and soon – you’ll see for yourself.
But we do have sound advice, if only you will yield.
Never rest your hands from the great leveler war,
not till you pack and cram the Trojan armies tight
in the famous walls of Troy – whoever flees your onset.
But once you’ve ripped away Prince Hector’s life,
back to the ships you go! We give you glory –
seize it in your hands!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 21, lines 325-336. The river god (Xanthus to the gods and Scamander to mortals) is attempting to drown Achilles in a river. But in this passage Poseidon assures him that it’s not his fate to die in a river. Achilles is told that he has the support of Poseidon and Athena, sent with the blessing of Zeus. The death of Hector at the hands of Achilles is foreshadowed by the sea god. Poseidon promises Achilles glory in the war, and tells him to seize it.

Pity me too! –
still in my senses, true, but a harrowed, broken man
marked out by doom – past the threshold of old age…
and Father Zeus will waste me with a hideous fate,
and after I’ve lived to look on so much horror!
My sons laid low, my daughters dragged away
and the treasure-chambers looted, helpless babies
hurled to the earth in the red barbarity of war…
my sons’ wives hauled off by the Argives’ bloody hands!
And I, I last of all – the dogs before my doors
will eat me raw, once some enemy brings me down
with his sharp bronze sword or spits me with a spear,
wrenching the life out of my body, yes, the very dogs
I bred in my own halls to share my table, guard my gates –
mad, rabid at heart they’ll lap their master’s blood
and loll before my doors.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 68-83. A father’s love speaks loudly through the words of King Priam, who pleads with Hector not to fight a fuel with Achilles, a confrontation in which he says his son will meet his doom. He mourns the loss of his other children in the war. He asks Hector to take pity on him and stay within the walls of Troy. Priam also speaks of his own terrible future: eaten by his own guard dogs after he is brought down by some enemy.

Ah for a young man
all looks fine and noble if he goes down in war,
hacked to pieces under a slashing bronze blade –
he lies there dead…but whatever death lays bare,
all wounds are marks of glory. When an old man’s killed
and the dogs go at the gray head and the gray beard
and mutilate the genitals – that is the cruelest sight
in all our wretched lives!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 83-90. King Priam talks about how noble it is for a young man to die in war and battle. While he lies there slashed to pieces, all his wounds are marks of glory. But the death of an old man is not an honorable thing, when he is killed and dogs mutilate his body, that is the cruelest sight of all. Priam is speaking to his son Hector, trying to dissuade him from fighting Achilles. He doesn’t want to lose Hector, but he also realizes that Hector’s willingness to die on the battlefield is his best chance for glory.

So the old man groaned
and seizing his gray hair tore it out by the roots
but he could not shake the fixed resolve of Hector.
And his mother wailed now, standing beside Priam.
weeping freely, loosing her robes with one hand
and holding out her bare breast with the other,
her words pouring forth in a flight of grief and tears:
"Hector, my child! Look – have some respect for this!
Pity your mother too, if I ever gave you the breast
to soothe your troubles, remember it now, dear boy –
beat back that savage man from safe inside the walls!
Don’t go forth, a champion pitted against him –
merciless, brutal man. If he kills you now,
how can I ever mourn you on your deathbed."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 90-103. Priam literally tears his hair out but cannot shake the resolve of his son Hector to go outside the walls of Troy to face Achilles. Hector’s mother Hecuba weeps and pleads with her son not to pit himself against this merciless and brutal champion. If Achilles kills him, she says that she will not be able to mourn him on his deathbed. This foreshadows how Hector’s corpse will be disrespected by Achilles. The love of two parents for their child comes through strongly in this passage.

No way out. If I slip inside the gates and walls,
Polydamas will be first to heap disgrace on me –
he was the one who urged me to lead our Trojans
back to Ilium just last night, the disastrous night
Achilles rose in arms like a god. But did I give way?
Not at all. And how much better it would have been!
Now my army’s ruined, thanks to my own reckless pride,
I would die of shame to face the men of Troy
and the Trojan women trailing their long robes…
Someone less of a man than I will say, "Our Hector –
staking all on his own strength, he destroyed his army!"

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 118-128. Hector probes his own heart as he waits to fight Achilles. He blames his own reckless pride for not listening to Polydamas’s advice to retreat after Achilles returned to the battlefield. However, if he slips back behind the city walls, he will be called a disgrace and lose his honor. Hector knows that he is in a bad situation, but cannot get out of it.

Achilles went for him, fast, sure of his speed
as the wild mountain hawk, the quickest thing on wings,
launching smoothly, swooping down on a cringing dove
and the dove flits out from under, the hawk screaming
over the quarry, plunging over and over, his fury
driving him down to beak and tear his kill –
so Achilles flew at him, breakneck on in fury
with Hector fleeing along the walls of Troy,
fast as his legs would go.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 165-173. Filled with fury, Achilles chases the fleeing Hector around the walls of Troy. An epic simile likens the adverseries to a speedy wild mountain hawk swooping down on a trembling dove.

Past these they raced, one escaping, one in pursuit
and the one who fled was great but the one pursuing
greater, even greater – their pace mounting in speed
since both men strove, not for a sacrificial beast
or oxhide trophy, prizes runners fight for, no,
they raced for the life of Hector breaker of horses.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 188-193. Achilles chases Hector around the walls of Troy. But they are not running in any any athletic competition to win a trophy, but rather for the life of Hector. The entire war of the last ten years is now down to these two warriors, each representing their respective army, Achaean and Trojan. The outcome of their battle will decide the final course of the Trojan War.

Like powerful stallions sweeping round the post for trophies,
galloping full stretch with some fine prize at stake,
a tripod, say, or woman offered up at funeral games
for some brave hero fallen – so the two of them
whirled three times around the city of Priam,
sprinting at top speed while all the gods gazed down.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 194-199. As war rivals Achilles and Hector race around the walls of the city of Troy, they are likened in an epic simile to powerful stallions racing around the post for trophies.

And swift Achilles kept on coursing Hector, nonstop
as a hound in the mountains starts a fawn from its lair,
hunting him down the gorges, down the narrow glens
and the fawn goes to ground, hiding deep in brush
but the hound comes racing fast, nosing him out
until he lands his kill. So Hector could never throw
Achilles off his trail, the swift racer Achilles.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 224-230. The drama of an epic hunting simile with a hound coursing a fawn is used by Homer to describe Achilles’s chase after Hector, who cannot escape his swift pursuer.

Hector, stop!
You unforgivable, you…don’t talk to me of pacts.
There are no binding oaths between men and lions –
wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds –
they are all bent on hating each other to the death.
So with you and me. No love between us. No truce
till one or the other falls and gluts with blood
Ares who hacks at men behind his rawhide shield.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 308-315. Achilles rejects Hector’s plea to agree a pact that the victor return the body of the other back to his comrades. The Greek hero says that there is no love between them, and uses an epic simile of there being no meeting of minds between wolves and lambs to illustrate his point. There will be no truce till one of them falls, glutting with blood Ares god of war, he vows. Achilles shows no compassion or forgiveness here.

Shaft poised, he hurled and his spear’s long shadow flew
and it struck Achilles’ shield – a dead-center hit –
but off and away it glanced and Hector seethed,
his hurtling spear, his whole arm’s power poured
in a wasted shot. He stood there, cast down…
he had no spear in reserve.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 341-346. Hector lets fly spear at Achilles, it strikes the great shield crafted by the god of fire and the forge Hephaestus, but it bounces away. Since he has no spear in reserve, Hector is worried.

And now death, grim death is looming up beside me,
no longer far away. No way to escape it now. This,
this was their pleasure after all, sealed long ago –
Zeus and the son of Zeus, the distant deadly Archer –
though often before now they rushed to my defense.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 354-358. When Hector shouts out to his brother Deiphobus for another spear and finds that he has vanished, he realizes that he has been tricked by Athena. The goddess had appeared to him in the form of Deiphobus saying that they would face Achilles together. This is a good example of dramatic irony, because the audience already knows about Athena’s deception and the gods’ decision that Hector should die. With death looming before him, Hector knows that his fate was sealed by the gods long ago, despite Zeus and Apollo coming to his aid often before now.

I beg you, beg you by your life, your parents –
don’t let the dogs devour me by the Argive ships!
Wait, take the princely ransom of bronze and gold,
the gifts my father and mother will give to you –
but give my body to friends to carry home again
so Trojan men and Trojan women can do me honor
With fitting rites of fire once I am dead.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 22, lines 399-405. Struggling for breath and about to die, the injured Hector pleads with Achilles to give his body to friends to bring home so that he may a proper funeral. He promises that his parents Priam and Hecuba will provide Achilles with a princely ransom. Hector is dying after his windpipe was slashed by Achilles’s spear.
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