Hector saw it coming and avoided it; he watched it and crouched down so that it flew over his head and stuck in the ground beyond; Minerva then snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles without Hector's seeing her; Hector thereon said to the son of Peleus, "You have missed your aim, Achilles, peer of the gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to you the hour of my doom, though you made sure that he had done so.

You were a false-tongued liar when you deemed that I should forget my valour and quail before you.
You shall not drive your spear into the back of a runaway--drive it, should heaven so grant you power, drive it into me as I make straight towards you; and now for your own part avoid my spear if you can--would that you might receive the whole of it into your body; if you were once dead the Trojans would find the war an easier matter, for it is you who have harmed them most." He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it.

His aim was true for he hit the middle of Achilles' shield, but the spear rebounded from it, and did not pierce it.

Hector was angry when he saw that the weapon had sped from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay for he had no second spear.

With a loud cry he called Deiphobus and asked him for one, but there was no man; then he saw the truth and said to himself, "Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction.