Act 5, Scene 8

Another part of the plain

[Enter HECTOR.]
Hector
3310 Most putrified core so fair without,
3311 Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
3312 Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:
3313 Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!
[Disarms.]
[Enter ACHILLES and his Myrmidons.]
Achilles
3314 Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;
3315 How ugly night comes breathing at his heels;
3316 Even with the vail and dark'ning of the sun,
3317 To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
Hector
3318 I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.
Achilles
3319 Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.
[HECTOR falls.]
Achilles
3320 So, Ilion, fall thou next! Now, Troy, sink down;
3321 Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
3322 On, Myrmidons, and cry you an amain
3323 'Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.'
[A retreat sounded.]
Achilles
3324 Hark! a retreat upon our Grecian part.
Myrmidon
3325 The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.
Achilles
3326 The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth
3327 And, stickler-like, the armies separates.
3328 My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed,
3329 Pleas'd with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.
[Sheathes his sword.]
Achilles
3330 Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;
3331 Along the field I will the Trojan trail.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 3310cultural context
“Most putrified core so fair without”
Hector has just killed a Greek warrior in magnificent armor and is stripping the body for its spoils — only to find the man inside is a rotting corpse. 'Putrified core' means a decayed body; 'fair without' means beautiful on the outside. The scene is Hector's fatal mistake: pausing to loot armor at the end of the day's fighting, unarmed and off-guard, is what costs him his life.
classical The Greek and Trojan heroes
TLN 3318classical allusion
“I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek”
Hector, who has just taken off his armor to rest, appeals to Achilles to pass up the 'vantage' — the unfair advantage. Achilles orders his Myrmidons to 'strike' anyway. In Homer's Iliad the two men meet in single combat, Achilles having chased Hector around the walls of Troy. Shakespeare makes the kill an outright murder: a pack of armed men cutting down one unarmed warrior. The play's most honourable fighter dies in the most dishonourable way possible.
classical Achilles, Patroclus, and the wrath of Achillesclassical The Greek and Trojan heroes
TLN 3326archaic vocab
“dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth And, stickler-like, the armies separates”
A 'stickler' was an official referee at a tournament or prize-fight — the man who physically stepped between the contestants at the end-signal to stop the combat. Here Achilles compares the falling night to a stickler ending the day's battle by separating the two armies. The word had been in common use since at least the mid-sixteenth century but is entirely opaque to a modern reader.
TLN 3330classical allusion
“tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail”
Achilles orders Hector's body tied to his horse's tail to be dragged across the battlefield. In Homer's Iliad, after killing Hector, Achilles lashed the body to his chariot and drove it in circuits around the walls of Troy while King Priam and Hector's wife Andromache watched from the ramparts. It was the most notorious act of desecration in the whole epic tradition, and Shakespeare's audience would have recognized it immediately.
classical Achilles, Patroclus, and the wrath of Achilles