Achilles burned with terrible anger against the Trojans. He decided to brutally take revenge on them for the death of his friends, Patroclus and Antilochus. Achilles fought like an angry lion, defeating the heroes of Troy one after another. The Trojans rushed into a hasty flight, they hurried to take refuge behind the walls of Troy. Furious Achilles pursued them. An inexorable fate drove him to certain death. Achilles pursued the Trojans all the way to the Scaean Gate.
He would have burst into sacred Troy, and it would have perished if the god Apollo had not appeared. Shouting menacingly, he stopped Achilles. But Achilles did not obey him. He himself was angry with God because the Arrow God had saved Hector and the Trojans from him many times. Achilles even threatened God that he would hit him with a spear. Inexorable fate darkened Achilles' mind. He was ready to attack even God. Apollo became angry, and he forgot what he had once promised, at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, to protect Achilles. Covered in a dark cloud, invisible to anyone, he directed Paris’s arrow, and it struck Achilles in the heel, where only the great hero could be hit. This wound was fatal for Achilles. Achilles felt the approach of death. He tore the arrow out of the wound and fell to the ground. He bitterly reproached the god Apollo for destroying him. Achilles knew that without the help of God no mortal could kill him. Once again Achilles gathered his strength. Terrible, like a dying lion, he rose from the ground and defeated many more Trojans. But his limbs grew cold. Death was getting closer. Achilles staggered and leaned on his spear. He shouted menacingly to the Trojans:
- Woe to you, you will perish! And after death I will take revenge on you!
At this cry the Trojans fled. But Achilles became increasingly weaker. His last strength left him, and he fell to the ground. His golden armor rattled on him, and the earth trembled. Achilles died. But the Trojans did not even dare to approach the dead man. They were afraid of him even when he was dead; he instilled such horror in them during his lifetime. Little by little they overcame their fear, and a cruel battle began to boil around the body of the greatest of heroes. The mightiest heroes of the Greeks and Trojans took part in this battle. Corpses were piled up in mountains around Achilles, and he lay motionless, huge, no longer hearing the battle. Dust swirled under the feet of the combatants. Blood flowed like a river. It seemed like the battle would never end. Suddenly Zeus thundered, a storm arose and stopped the Trojans. Zeus did not want the Trojans to take possession of the corpse of Achilles. The mighty Ajax Telamonides picked up the corpse of Achilles and carried it to the ships, and Odysseus defended him, repelling the advancing Trojans. A cloud of arrows and spears flew from the ranks of the Trojans towards Odysseus, but he still courageously held back their onslaught, retreating step by step.
Ajax brought the corpse of Achilles to the ships. The Greeks washed the corpse, anointed it with fragrant oil and laid it on a magnificently decorated bed. Surrounding the bed, the Greeks loudly mourned their greatest hero and tore out their hair in grief. The goddess Thetis heard their cry. She rose from the depths of the sea with her Nereid sisters. Upon learning that her beloved son had died, Thetis uttered such a cry of grief that all the Greeks trembled. They would have fled in fear to the ships if Elder Nestor had not stopped them. Thetis, the Nereids and the Greeks mourned Achilles for seventeen days. The muses descended from high Olympus. They sang a funeral hymn in honor of the deceased. The immortal gods on Olympus also mourned the hero. On the eighteenth day a funeral pyre was built. The corpse of Achilles was burned on it. The Greeks sacrificed many victims in honor of the greatest of heroes. All Greeks took part in the funeral, dressed in magnificent armor. When the fire burned down, they collected the bones of Achilles and put them in a golden urn, which the god Dionysus gave to Thetis. The bones of Patroclus also lay in the same urn. Achilles, Patroclus and Antilochus, the son of Nestor, were buried in the same grave. The Greeks built a high mound over the grave; it was visible far from the sea, testifying to the great glory of the heroes buried under it.
After the funeral, games were organized in honor of the deceased. The goddess Thetis brought precious gifts from the sea. They were supposed to serve as a reward for the winners of the games. So luxurious were these gifts that Achilles himself would have been delighted if the great hero had lived.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru