Shane Mage wrote:
>
>
> -Hektor puts on his armor and goes to what he knows is certain
> death at the hands of Akhilleus
I disagree. At the heart of the poem is Akhilleus's certain knowledge that he will die. That is contrasted to Hektor's capacity to deceive himself. He abstractly (like all other humans) knows he will die, but concretely continues to hope/expect that he will not.
>
> -Akhilleus puts aside his angry desire for ultimate revenge and
> accedes to the plea of Priam to return the corpse of Hektor for
> proper funeral rites.
Yes. But there is so much more to the episode than that, which is only its point of departure. The tragedy of Akhilleus is his bearing up under a tragedy imposed on him by forces beyond his control, and the poem's discovery, in that tragedy, of what it means to be human.
Carrol