Section 1: Betrayal and Withdrawal Chryses, the priest of Apollo, comes to Agamemnon's tent. The Achaeans have captured his daughter Chryseis in a raid and given her to Agamemnon as a war prize. The priest offers a rich ransom to get his daughter back, but the commander Agamemnon rudely rejects him and sends him away. Upon the broken-hearted priest's plea, the god Apollo sends a deadly plague to the Achaean camp. For nine days, the funeral pyres do not extinguish. On the tenth day, Achilles calls for an assembly of the army. The seer Calchas states that the cause of the disaster is Agamemnon's disrespect towards the priest and that the girl must be returned without ransom. Agamemnon angrily agrees, but cannot bear the thought of his authority being undermined; because he has lost his honor (geras), he declares that he will forcibly take Briseis, Achilles' war prize, to claim his due. This is an unbearable humiliation for Achilles. As he draws his sword and contemplates killing Agamemnon, he is stopped by the goddess Athena, who is the only one who can see him. Achilles swears a great oath that he will completely withdraw from the war and will not lift a finger until the day he understands how much the army needs him. He goes to the seashore to pour out his heart and weeps to his mother Thetis, the sea goddess. Thetis goes to Olympus to ease her son's pain of having his honor trampled. She kneels before Zeus and begs him to grant victory to the Trojans until her son regains the honor he deserves. Zeus, despite knowing his wife Hera's hatred for the Trojans, nods in acceptance of this request. Achilles and his men (the Myrmidons) begin to wait by their ships, completely indifferent to the war. Section 2: The War Without Achilles and Hector's Rise Zeus's plan comes into play. He sends a false dream to Agamemnon, whispering that victory is near. With the confidence given by Achilles' absence, Agamemnon prepares the army for a major attack. However, when the two armies face each other, a proposal comes to end the war as soon as possible: Menelaus and Paris will fight one-on-one. Menelaus easily defeats Paris, but the goddess Aphrodite intervenes, whisking Paris away in a cloud of mist and placing him safely beside Helen. The truce is broken, and the war resumes. The greatest warrior of Troy, Hector, returns to the city to bid farewell to his mother Hecuba and his wife Andromache. In this poignant scene, his baby son Astyanax, whom he tries to hold, cries in fear of his father's horsehair plume on his helmet. Knowing that defending his city is an honorable duty regardless of his fate, Hector returns to battle. Hector storms across the battlefield with his massive stature and courage. He drives the Achaeans back to their ships and is on the verge of setting their ships on fire. In Achilles' absence, the strongest Achaean warriors Diomedes, Ajax, and even Agamemnon suffer severe wounds. The situation is desperate. Patroclus, Achilles' closest friend and perhaps his only beloved person, pleads with Achilles in tears: the Greek army is on the brink of destruction. Either he should return to battle himself or at least allow Patroclus to don his armor and lead the Myrmidons into battle. Although Achilles is still rigid in his anger, he cannot bear his friend's sorrow and reluctantly agrees. However, he sternly warns Patroclus: "Just prevent the ships from being set on fire, drive back the Trojans, and return. Do not attack the walls!" Chapter 3: The Death of Patroclus and the Return of Anger Patroclus, donning Achilles' armor, charges into the battlefield with an illusion that the Trojans believe he is Achilles. The Trojans flee in panic. Patroclus, intoxicated by the battle and the exhilaration of his own strength, forgets Achilles' warning. He chases the Trojans all the way to the walls of Troy. He even tries to climb the walls, but is repelled by the god Apollo. It is at this moment that he confronts his fate. The god Apollo stuns him, and then a Trojan soldier strikes him with a spear, and finally, the greatest rival on the battlefield, Hector, kills him by plunging his spear into Patroclus' belly. Before dying, Patroclus' last words are to inform Hector that he will die at the hands of Achilles. Hector strips Achilles' armor from Patroclus' corpse. When the news of Patroclus' death reaches Achilles, he is overcome with indescribable pain and guilt. He collapses to the ground, tears his hair, and grabs the earth. This time, he is filled with a different, darker rage. He goes to his mother Thetis and tells her that he has realized a greater truth than the insult to his honor due to his mortality: He could not protect his dearest friend. His only aim now is to kill Hector, even knowing that his own death will follow shortly after. Thetis goes to the lame blacksmith god Hephaestus to have new armor made for her son. Hephaestus forges a shield and armor of divine beauty, depicting the world, the sky, war, and peace. Section 4: Achilles' Revenge and Hector's End Akhilleus, who dons his new and divine weapons, goes to Agamemnon and declares that he has set aside his anger. They make peace. When Akhilleus enters the battlefield, he is like a natural disaster; he mows down everyone in his path, filling the riverbed with corpses. The river goddess Skamandros becomes enraged by Akhilleus's excessive violence and tries to drown him with her waters, but he is stopped by the fire sent by Hephaistos. The fleeing Trojans take refuge behind the walls, but Hektor, knowing that this is his fate, remains outside the walls with a sense of shame and duty, waiting for Akhilleus. However, when he sees Akhilleus before him, he experiences all the fear of a mortal man and begins to flee. The two circle around the walls of Troy three times. The gods determine the outcome of this relentless chase with Hektor's fate weighing heavier on Zeus's scales. The goddess Athena, disguised as Hektor's brother Deiphobos, convinces him to stop and fight together. Hektor agrees to stop and fight, but realizes at the moment he would ask for help that his brother is an illusion. The final duel begins. Hektor throws his spear, aiming for the only weak point in Akhilleus's god-made armor, the throat next to the collarbone, but it goes astray. Akhilleus knows the weak points because Hektor is wearing his old armor. Ignoring Hektor's last desperate move to draw his sword, he drives his spear into Hektor's throat. As he dies, Hektor begs Akhilleus not to throw his body to the dogs, but to return it to his family. Akhilleus's response is icy: "Do not expect mercy from me, for you could not say that you would not care if they tore Patroklos's body apart." He ties Hektor's body to the back of his chariot and drags it to the Achaean camp, amidst the cries of the Trojans and especially Hektor's family rising from the walls. He organizes magnificent funeral games for Patroklos, but his grief does not subside. For twelve days, every morning he drags Hektor's body around Patroklos's grave. Finally, the gods intervene in this inhumane situation. Section 5: Return to Compassion and Humanity Zeus sends Thetis to Achilles to inform him that the gods are angry and that he must return the body in exchange for a ransom. That same night, King Priam of Troy, guided by the god Hermes, arrives alone at the enemy camp, at Achilles' tent, with a chariot full of treasures. The old king kneels and kisses the hands of the man who killed his son and makes a heart-wrenching plea: "Think of your father Peleus, old and helpless like me. But I am more unfortunate than he, for I endure to kiss the hands of the man who killed my son." These words create a crack in Achilles' stone-like heart. He thinks of his own father and realizes that one day he too will suffer the same pain. Both of them, for different reasons, weep with the same deep sorrow. Achilles washes and dresses Hector's corpse beautifully and hands it over to Priam. He even promises an eleven-day truce so that Priam can hold his son's funeral. The Iliad ends with Hector's magnificent funeral in Troy. The epic begins with Achilles' wrath, wanders through the darkest points of this wrath, and ultimately concludes with the realization of shared humanity and compassion. The fall of Troy or the death of Achilles is not narrated in this epic.