Then he leapt into the chariot of the king and caught the reins in his hand, and gave the horses and the mules a strength that was not their own. And when they came to the ditch and the trench that guarded the ships, lo! the guards were busy with their meals; but Mercury made sleep descend upon them, and opened the gates and brought in Priam with his treasures. And when they came to the tent of Achilles, Mercury lighted down from the chariot and said—
“Lo! I am Mercury, whom my father Jupiter hath sent to be thy guide. And now I shall depart, for I would not that Achilles should see me. But go thou in, and clasp his knees, and beseech him by his father and his mother and his child. So shalt thou move his heart with pity.”
So Mercury departed to Olympus, and King Priam leapt down from the chariot, leaving the herald to care for the horses and the mules, and went to the tent. There he found Achilles sitting; his comrades sat apart, but two waited on him, for he had but newly ended his meal, and the table was yet at his hand. But no man saw King Priam till he was close to Achilles, and he caught his knees and kissed his hands, the dreadful murderous hands that had slain so many of his sons. As a man who slays another by mishap flies to some stranger land, to some rich man’s home, and all wonder to see him, so Achilles wondered to see King Priam, and his comrades wondered, looking one at another. Then King Priam spake—
“Think of thy father, godlike Achilles, and pity me. He is old, as I am, and, it may be, his neighbors trouble him, seeing that he has no defender; yet so long as he knows that thou art alive, it is well with him, for every day he hopes to see his dear son return from Troy. But as for me, I am altogether wretched. Many a valiant son I had—nineteen born to me of one mother—and most of them are dead, and he that was the best of all, who kept our city safe, he has been slain by thee. He it is whom I have come to ransom. Have pity on him and on me, thinking of thy father. Never, surely, was lot so sad as this, to kiss the hands that slew a son.”
The words so stirred the heart of Achilles that he wept, thinking now of Patroclus, and now of his old father at home; and Priam wept, thinking of his dead Hector. But at last Achilles stood up from his seat and raised King Priam, having pity on his white hair and his white beard, and spake—