With these words he urged on Athene what she herself already desired, and she went darting down from the peaks of Olympos. And swift Achilleus kept driving Hektor on with his relentless pursuit. As when a dog has started the fawn of a deer from its lair in the mountains, and chases it on through the hollows and the glens: even if it takes to cover and crouches hidden under a bush, the dog smells out its track and runs on unerringly until he finds it. So Hektor could not throw off the swift-footed son of Peleus. Whenever he tried to make a dash for the Dardanian gates, to get under the well-built walls and give the men above a chance of defending him with their weapons, every time Achilleus would be there in time to block his way and head him back out towards the plain, while he himself kept always on the city side as he flew onwards. As a man in a dream is unable to pursue someone trying to escape, and the other cannot run away just as he cannot give chase: so Achilleus could not catch him with his running, nor Hektor get away. And how could Hektor have kept clear of the fates of death, if Apollo had not come close to him for the last and final time, and spurred strength in him and speed to his legs? And godlike Achilleus had been shaking his head at his own people to stop them shooting their bitter arrows at Hektor, in case one of them should win the glory with a hit, and he himself reach Hektor too late. But when they came round to the well-heads for the fourth time, then the Father opened out his golden scales. In the pans he put two fates of death’s long sorrow, one for Achilleus and one for Hektor the tamer of horses, and he took the scales in the middle and lifted them up: and Hektor’s day of doom sank down, away into Hades, and Phoibos Apollo left him. Then the bright-eyed goddess Athene came to the son of Peleus, and stood close by him and spoke winged words to him: ‘Now, glorious Achilleus loved of Zeus, now I think that we two will bring great glory for the Achaians back to the ships – we will kill Hektor, for all his lust for battle. There is no possibility now that he can escape us any longer, even if Apollo the far-worker goes through agonies of grovelling before father Zeus who holds the aegis. So you stand still now and get your breath, while I go and persuade him to fight with you face to face.’