used in great abundance round the cone, were shaken. As the star
Hesperus, which is placed the brightest star in heaven,[707] proceeds
amongst other stars in the unseasonable time of night, so it shone from
the well-sharpened spear which Achilles, designing mischief to noble
Hector, brandished in his right hand, eyeing his fair person, where it
would best yield. But the beautiful brazen armour, of which he had
despoiled great Patroclus, having slain him, covered the rest of his
body so much; yet did there appear [a part] where the collar-bones
separate the neck from the shoulders, and where the destruction of life
is most speedy. There noble Achilles, eager, drove into him with the
spear, and the point went out quite through his tender neck. However the
ash, heavy with brass, did not cut away the windpipe, so that, answering
in words, he could address him. But he fell in the dust, and noble
Achilles vaunted over him:

"Hector, thou didst once suppose, when spoiling Patroclus, that thou be
safe, nor dreaded me, being absent. Fool! for I apart, a much braver
avenger of him, was left behind at the hollow ships, I who have relaxed
thy knees. The dogs, indeed, and birds shall dishonourably tear thee,
but the Greeks shall perform his funeral rites."

But him crest-tossing Hector, growing languid, then addressed:

"I supplicate thee by thy soul, thy knees, thy parents, suffer not the
dogs to tear me at the ships of the Greeks; but do thou indeed receive
brass in abundance, and gold, which my father and venerable mother will
give thee; and send my body home, that the Trojans and wives of the
Trojans may make me, dead, partaker of a funeral pyre." [708]

[Footnote 707: Milton, P.L. v. 166:--

"Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn."]

[Footnote 708: Cf. AEn. x. 903; xii. 930, sqq.]

But him swift-footed Achilles, sternly regarding, addressed;

"Dog, supplicate me not by my knees, nor by my parents; for would that
my might and mind in any manner urge me myself, tearing thy raw flesh to
pieces, to devour it, such things hast thou done to me. So that there is
not any one who can drive away the dogs from thy head, not even if they
should place ten-fold and twenty-times such ransoms, bringing them
hither, and even promise others; not even if Dardanian Priam should wish
to compensate for thee with gold:[709] not even thus shall thy venerable
mother lament [the