Achilles; you have forgotten me now. / You were always attentive to me when I was alive, / but now I am dead, you neglect me. Bury me quickly, / so I can pass through the gates of Hades.

But Apollo pitied [Hector] although he was dead, / and protected him, covering him with the golden storm shield / so his body would not be torn as the chariot dragged him.

Achilles has lost all pity, all sense of shame. / He is not, after all, the first man to have a friend die.

Have pity on me; remember / your father. For I am more to be pitied than he is, since I have endured what no mortal ever endured: / I have kissed the hands of the man who slaughtered my children.

The immortals / have spun out the thread of life for us human beings / so that, however we can, we must learn to bear / misfortune like this, but they live free of all sorrow.

On the twelfth day the war can begin again, if it must.