Page:Homer The Iliad.djvu/152

138 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:—