The Hero 45
Achilles reaches the pinnacle of his proud magnanimity in the
encounter with K ing Priam, when Priam, guided by Hermes, makes
his way to Achilles’ tent to beg for the body of Hector. The meeting
between Priam and Achilles is one of amazing grandeur and pathos.
The old king enters the hero’s tent, past his many friends and re-
tainers, and throws himself at Achilles’ feet. And there he does the
nearly unthinkable. He kisses the hands of Achilles: “kneeling down
beside Achilles, [Priam] clasped his knees / and kissed his hands,
those terrible, man- killing hands / that had slaughtered Priam’s
many sons in battle” (XXIV, 560–562). He begs the hero for mercy.
He entreats Achilles to give up the body of Hector so that Hecuba
and Andromache can see him again and so that the Trojans can
mourn their champion with a fi tting burial.
Achilles is shocked at Priam’s daring. He cannot believe that the
old man would risk his life this way. Though he still is mourning
for Patroclus, Achilles softens. Looking on Priam, he is compelled
to think of his own father, far away, at home. Achilles is Peleus’ only
child and Achilles feels certain that his father will never see him
alive again. The hero breaks into tears, mourning for his lost friend
and for his father, a grieving old man, much like the one before him
grasping his hands.
One still cannot quite say that what Achilles feels is empathy. He
feels sorrow for himself and for his own father, and that connects
him to Priam. Yet Achilles is still where we always have seen him—
at the center of his own world.
But then something moves within the hero. He looks upon Priam
and he says, “Poor man, how much you’ve borne— pain to break the
spirit” (XXIV, 605). For a moment, hardly more than that, Achilles
seems to leave himself and to enter the life of another man, the suf-
fering old king who is his mortal enemy. “Poor man, how much
you’ve borne— pain to break the spirit! / What daring brought you
down to the ships all alone, / to face the glance of the man who killed