THE WAILING FOR HECTOR.
(Iliad xxiv., 723-775.) FIRST, the white-armed Andromache the women's wailing led, 1 And in her hands she held the while her manslayer Hector's head : " Ah ! young," she said, "and in thy prime, my husband, thou art dead ;
And leavest me behind thee here, a widow in thy hall, Our boy, ah ! luckless parents we, a speechless babe and small ; Scarce shall he grow, methinks, to man, since first this town will fall From tower to base ; for thou her stay and watcher wast, and still Didst keep her prudent mothers and speechless babes from ill. Full soon, I fear, the hollow ships shall carry them away, And I shall be among them, and thee, my child, that day Or I shall take to some far land to serve a ruthless king With toils of service mean and base, or else some foe shall fling, Caught by the hand, from off the wall, 0 woe ! upon the plain, Some foe who bears a wrathful heart for sire or brother slain, For sire, for brother, or for sou, since many an Argive lord Hath bitten the great earth in death beneath my Rector's sword. No gentle one, forsooth ! was he, thy sire, in deadly fray, Wherefore the nations mourn for hitn in Ilion's town to-day. Oh! sore for mother and for sire the wailing and the woe, My Hector, thou hast made, but I a deeper grief must know, Who grasped no hands of farewell stretched from dying bed, nor heard, To keep through days and nights of tears one precious latest word." So, weeping sore, she spake, and loud the women wailed reply ; And next Queen Hecuba took up the mourners' ceaseless cry :— "0 Hector ! among all my sous beloved beyond compare, 1 Much favoured of the gods in life thou west, and still their care E'en in the doom of death. Not thee, as others whom I bare, Did swift Achilles captive make, and o'er the barren deep To Imbros or to Samos sell, or Lemnos' frowning steep ; And though, when he had ref t away thy life with keen-edged blade, He dragged thee oft about the mound wherein his friend was laid, Patroclus, slain by thee, nor yet could bring him from below, Yet fresh and fair thou heat there, as when with sudden blow Of painless shafts Apollo strikes, Lord of the silver bow." Weeping she spake, and stirred the wail that ceased not for the dead;
And next fair Helen, third in turn, the shrill lamenting led :— " 0 Hector! more than all beside of husband's kindred dear : 1 The godlike Paris is my spouse, Paris who brought me here— Would God that I had died before !—and 'tis the twentieth year j Since first I left my native laud and fled across the sea, Yet never heard I evil word, or taunting speech from thee. Still wast thou wont in Priam's hall, if one should chance to blame, Brother or sister of my spouse, or brother's stately dame, Or mother—for thy sire has been ever as father kind—
To soothe and check, for thou wast aye of gentle speech and mind ; Wherefore I mourn for thee, nor leas of my own fate complain, Vexed to the soul, for whom nor friends nor kindly hearts remain, But all turn shuddering when I come, throughout Troy's broad domain."
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