Hector

Patroclus put on Achilles' splendid armour and led the Myrmidons into battle. Achilles had lent it to him so that the Trojans would believe Achilles had returned and withdraw from the Greek ships. At the first attack, the Trojans wavered. Hector killed Patroclus, stripped the armour from his body, and put it on himself. Zeus already knew that the armour would bring Hector to his downfall.

A messenger ran to Achilles with the news. Patroclus had fallen, and Hector had taken his armour. Grief seized Achilles so fiercely that those around him feared for his life. Thetis rose from the sea caves to comfort him. Achilles swore that he would no longer live among men unless Hector paid with his life for Patroclus' death. Thetis warned him that he was fated to die soon after Hector. Achilles accepted this fate and promised to kill Patroclus' destroyer before meeting his own death.

Thetis asked him to wait until morning. She then brought him new arms made by Hephaestus, the divine armourer. At dawn, Achilles went out to battle with Athena beside him. Hector was alone, since Apollo had left him to his fate. He fled from Achilles, and they ran three times around the wall of Troy. Athena appeared to Hector in the form of his brother Deiphobus. Believing that Deiphobus had come to help him, Hector stopped and faced Achilles.

Hector proposed that the victor should return the other's body to his friends. Achilles rejected any agreement between them. He threw his spear, but it missed. Athena brought it back to him. Hector struck Achilles' shield, but the magical armour could not be pierced. Hector turned to Deiphobus for another spear and found that he had vanished. He understood that his death had come. Drawing his sword, he charged. Achilles waited behind his shield, then aimed at the part of Hector's neck left uncovered by the armour. Hector fell, mortally wounded. He asked Achilles to let his parents ransom his body so that he could receive funeral rites from the people of Troy.

The Greeks drove the Trojans back, and Hector prepared to lead a counter-attack. The fighting followed a failed duel between Paris and Menelaus. Paris had proposed that the victor should take Helen and end the war, but Aphrodite removed him from the battlefield, so the contest settled nothing. Hector had already rebuked Paris for the trouble he had brought upon Troy and for refusing to fight. Now Hector turned away from the battle for a short time. He prayed for the city, the wives of the Trojans, and their children, but Pallas Athena denied the prayer.

Hector went to the wall, where Andromache had come in terror after hearing that the Trojans were retreating. She carried their son, Astyanax, and a handmaid was with her. Hector saw his wife and child. He smiled, then looked at them without speaking. Andromache took his hand and wept. She called him her dear lord. She said that he was her father, mother, brother, and husband. She begged him to remain with them. If he returned to the fighting, she feared that he would make her a widow and their child an orphan.

Hector refused her gently. He said that he could not act as a coward. His duty was to fight at the forefront of the battle. He knew that Troy might fall and that she might be taken away. The thought that troubled him most was the anguish she would suffer if he died. He did not forget her pain. After the farewell, Hector returned to the battle. He led the Trojans in their counter-attack, then went back to defend the city.