Hector dies

The Trojans have all run inside the gates of Troy. Hector waits outside. His parents Priam and Hecuba beg him from the wall to come in — Hector, our last son still standing, please. He refuses. He has chosen, by going out today, to face whatever happens. He stands in the dust outside the gate and watches Achilles come.

Achilles approaches, the new armor flashing in the sun. Hector's nerve breaks. He runs. Achilles pursues. They run three times around the walls of the city, in front of the Trojans on the wall and the Greek army watching from the plain and the gods on Olympus. The gods discuss whether to save Hector. Zeus weighs his fate on golden scales; Hector's side sinks. Athena descends and approaches Hector in the form of his brother Deiphobus. With me beside you, she says, we can stand and fight Achilles together. Hector, encouraged, stops. He turns. He calls for his "brother" to throw the second spear. There is no one there. Athena has vanished. Achilles is on him.

They throw their spears. Achilles knows the armor Hector is wearing — it is his own armor, taken from Patroclus's body — and he knows the one gap in it, at the throat. He strikes there. The spear goes through. Hector falls. Dying, he begs Achilles to give his body back to his family for proper burial. Achilles refuses with extraordinary brutality — "I wish I could carve up your body and eat it raw" — and tells him the dogs will have him. Hector, with his last breath, predicts Achilles's own death. He dies. Achilles strips the body, ties it by the ankles to the back of his chariot, and drags it around the walls of Troy in front of Hector's family. Andromache, who had been weaving inside, hears the keening on the wall and runs out, sees what is happening, faints. The book ends with the city in shock and Hector's body dragged in the dust.