He drew the spear from the body, stripped the bloodstained armor, and the other Achaeans ran up to wonder at Hector's beauty and strength. Not one passed without wounding the corpse.
Achilles stood among the Argives and said heaven had let them overcome the man who had done them more harm than all the rest. Now they should try the city with arms to see if the Trojans would abandon it — but why that thought? Patroclus still lay unwept and unburied by the ships. Nothing would forget him while Achilles lived and could move.
He pierced the tendons behind both heels from heel to ankle, passed ox-hide thongs through the slits, and made the body fast to his chariot so the head would drag. He mounted, whipped the horses, and they flew willingly. Dust rose over Hector's dark hair; his once-fair head lay in the dust, and Zeus gave that head to be dishonored in his own land.
Hecuba tore her hair and flung off her veil with a loud cry. Priam moaned, and the people throughout the city wept as if Troy itself were burning. The old king begged to go out alone to the Achaean ships and ransom his son, reminding them how Achilles' own father Peleus would pity a grieving father.
Hecuba raised the wail among the Trojans, saying she had nothing left to live for now that Hector was dead — he who was her glory night and day, a blessing to Troy, greeted like a god through the city.
Andromache had heard nothing yet. She was at her loom in an inner room, weaving a double purple web with flowers, and had ordered her women to heat a great tripod for Hector's bath when he came home from battle — poor woman, not knowing he was already far from baths under Achilles' hands.
She heard the cry and wailing from the tower. Her limbs shook; the shuttle fell. She told her women that was her mother's voice, and her heart feared Achilles had cut Hector off alone outside the city and driven him to the plain — for Hector would not stay in the ranks but always ran out ahead, yielding to no one in his courage.
She flew from the house like one mad, waiting-women after her. At the battlements she looked out and saw Hector dragged before the city, horses hauling him ruthlessly toward the hollow ships. Black night covered her eyes; she fell backward and gasped away her spirit.
When she breathed again she lamented Hector, remembering how they were both born to one fate, she in Thebe under Placos and he in Troy, and how he left her a widow in the halls, and their child still a baby — Astyanax, whom the Trojans called by that name because Hector alone guarded the gates and the long walls.
She foresaw the boy orphaned, hungering at other men's tables, shoved from the feast, and Troy's women led away as spoil — herself among them — while dogs would eat Hector by the ships, naked, far from the clothes she had ready in the house. So she cried among her tears, and the women joined her lament.