at the ships, unclad, unburned,
unlamented. To be unburned and unburied was thought the greatest of
misfortunes, because the dead man unburned could not go into the House
of Hades, God of the Dead, but must always wander, alone and
comfortless, in the dark borderland between the dead and the living.

VIII

THE CRUELTY OF ACHILLES, AND THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR

When Achilles was asleep that night the ghost of Patroclus came, saying,
'Why dost thou not burn and bury me? for the other shadows of dead men
suffer me not to come near them, and lonely I wander along the dark
dwelling of Hades.' Then Achilles awoke, and he sent men to cut down
trees, and make a huge pile of fagots and logs. On this they laid
Patroclus, covered with white linen, and then they slew many cattle, and
Achilles cut the throats of twelve Trojan prisoners of war, meaning to
burn them with Patroclus to do him honour. This was a deed of shame, for
Achilles was mad with sorrow and anger for the death of his friend. Then
they drenched with wine the great pile of wood, which was thirty yards
long and broad, and set fire to it, and the fire blazed all through the
night and died down in the morning. They put the white bones of
Patroclus in a golden casket, and laid it in the hut of Achilles, who
said that, when he died, they must burn his body, and mix the ashes with
the ashes of his friend, and build over it a chamber of stone, and cover
the chamber with a great hill of earth, and set a pillar of stone above
it. This is one of the hills on the plain of Troy, but the pillar has
fallen from the tomb, long ago.

Then, as the custom was, Achilles held games--chariot races, foot races,
boxing, wrestling, and archery--in honour of Patroclus. Ulysses won the
prize for the foot race, and for the wrestling, so now his wound must
have been healed.

But Achilles still kept trailing Hector's dead body each day round the
hill that had been raised for the tomb of Patroclus, till the Gods in
heaven were angry, and bade Thetis tell her son that he must give back
the dead body to Priam, and take ransom for it, and they sent a
messenger to Priam to bid him redeem the body of his son. It was
terrible for Priam to have to go and humble himself before Achilles,
whose hands had been red with the blood of his sons, but he did not
disobey the Gods. He opened his chests, and took out twenty-four
beautiful embroidered changes of raiment; and he weighed out ten heavy
bars