Priam Quotes

As later Priam comes secretly to the enemy camp to plead with Achilles for the return of his son Hector's body, he says: "'I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son."
Those words echoed round me, as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles had plundered from burning cities. I thought: "And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers. ~ Pat Barker

Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter. ~ Homer

The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again. ~ Brad Pitt

So you will not kneel to me?" He said.
I will kneel to no man, "She answered, preparing herself for the push that would send her toppling to her death and ready to haul him with her.
You interest me, girl. There is no fear in you."
Nor in you, apparently, King Priam."
He looked surprised. "Fear if for weaklings. Look around you. This is Troy. My Troy. The richest and most powerful city in the world. It was not built by fearful men, but my men with imagination and courage. It's wealth grows Daily, and with it the influence that wealth brings. ~ David Gemmell

In the last book of the Iliad (24.602ff.), Achilles urges Priam to eat: even Niobe, he says, after all her children had been slaughtered by the gods, took food eventually. Both Priam and Achilles have been bereaved of their dearest, and yet they gather themselves, and eat, and sleep, and go on living. (...) ...there are two early Lucanian vases with mourners by a grave stele with the same inscription "spoken" by the tomb: "On my back I grow mallow and thick-rooted asphodel: / in my bosom I hold Oedipus, son of Laios." Even Oedipus, the great king of Thebes, archetype of tragedy, experienced a catastrophic fall and descended into the deepest pit of horrors; yet ordinary plants grow on his tomb. We are not so different. ~ Oliver Taplin

so evenly was strained their war and battle,
till the moment when Zeus gave the greater renown to Hector, son of
Priam, who was the first to leap within the wall of the Achaians. In a
piercing voice he cried aloud to the Trojans: "Rise, ye horse-taming
Trojans, break the wall of the Argives, and cast among the ships fierce
blazing fire."

So spake he, spurring them on, and they all heard him with their ears,
and in one mass rushed straight against the wall, and with sharp spears
in their hands climbed upon the machicolations of the towers. And
Hector seized and carried a stone that lay in front of the gates, thick
in the hinder part, but sharp at point: a stone that not the two best
men of the people, such as mortals now are, could lightly lift from the
ground on to a wain, but easily he wielded it alone, for the son of
crooked-counselling Kronos made it light for him. And as when a shepherd
lightly beareth the fleece of a ram, taking it in one hand, and little
doth it burden him, so Hector lifted the stone, and bare it straight
against the doors that closely guarded the stubborn-set portals, double
gates and tall, and two cross bars held them within, and one bolt
fastened them. And he came, and stood hard by, and firmly planted
himself, and smote them in the midst, setting his legs well apart, that
his cast might lack no strength. And he brake both the hinges, and the
Homer

After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes? ~ Umberto Eco

It seems to me, that you people spend a great deal of time talking about honour, but strip away the high sounding words and you are no different from any other race. Family? Has Priam not killed wayward sons? When a king dies do his sons not go to war with one another to succeed him? Men speak of how you reacted to your father's death. They say it was amazing, for you did not order your little brother's execution. Your race thrives on blood and death, Helikaon. Your ships raid the coasts of other nations, stealing slaves, burning and plundering. Warriors brag of how many men they have killed, and women they have raped. Almost all of your kings either seized their thrones with swords and murder, or are children of men who seized power with swords and murder. So put all this talk of honour to one side. ~ David Gemmell

He who thinks that the lives of Priam and of Nestor were long is much deceived and mistaken. Life consists not in living, but in enjoying health. ~ Martial

Zeus most glorious and most great, Thundercloud, throned in the heavens! Let not the sun go down and the darkness come, until I cast down headlong the citadel of Priam in flames, and burn his gates with blazing fire, and tear to rags the shirt upon Hectors breast! May many of his men fall about him prone in the dust and bite the earth! ~ Homer

Priam and Achilles meet in the very twilight of their lives. Their extinction is certain and there will be no reward for behaving well, and yet, in the face of implacable fate and an indifferent universe, they mutually assert the highest ideals of their humanity. ~ Caroline Alexander