HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE
Hector came into the city by the Scæan gates, and as he went wives
and mothers crowded about him, asking how it had fared with their
husbands and sons. But he said naught, save to bid them pray; and
indeed there was sore news for many, if he had told that which he
knew. Then he came to the palace of King Priam, and there he saw
Hecuba, his mother, and with her Laodice, fairest of her daughters.
She caught him by the hand and said:--
An-drom'-a-che. Scæ'-an. Hec'-u-ba.
"Why hast thou come from the battle, my son? Do the Greeks press
thee hard, and art thou minded to pray to Father Zeus from the
citadel? Let me bring thee honey-sweet wine, that thou mayest pour
out before him, aye, and that thou mayest drink thyself, and gladden
thy heart."
But Hector said: "Give me not wine, my mother, lest thou weaken my
knees and make me forget my courage. Nor must I pour out an offering
to Zeus thus, with unwashed hands. But do thou gather the mothers of
Troy together, and go to the temple of Athene and take a robe, the
one that is the most precious and beautiful in thy stores, and lay it
on the knees of the goddess, and pray her to keep this dreadful
Diomed from the walls of Troy; and forget not to vow therewith twelve
heifers as a sacrifice. As for me, I will go and seek Paris, if
perchance he will come with me to the war. Would that the earth
might open and swallow him up, for of a truth he is a curse to King
Priam and to Troy."
Then went Queen Hecuba into her house, and gave command to her maids
that they should assemble the aged women of the city. Afterwards she
went to her store-chamber, where lay the well-wrought robes, work of
Sidonian women, which Paris himself brought from Sidon, when he
sailed upon the broad sea, bringing home with him high-born Helen.
The fairest robe of all did the Queen take. Bright as a star it was,
and it lay the undermost of all.
Si-do'-ni-an. Si'-don.
And when she and the aged women that were with her came to the temple
of Athene that was in the citadel, the priestess of Athene opened the
doors to them. They lifted their hands, and cried aloud, and the
priestess laid the garment on the knees of the goddess, and spake,
saying:--
"Lady Athene, that keepest the city, break now the spear of Diomed,
and let him fall upon his face before the Scæan gates. So will we
sacrifice to thee twelve heifers that have not felt the goad, if only
thou wilt have pity upon our town, and on the wives and little ones
of the men of Troy."
So she prayed, but Athene heeded not her words.
Meanwhile Hector went to the house of Paris, where it stood on the
citadel, near to his own dwelling and the dwelling of Priam. He
found him busy with his arms, and the fair Helen sat near him and
gave their tasks to her maidens.
When Hector saw his brother, he spake to him bitter words, taunting
him, as if it were by reason of his anger that he stood aloof from
the battle. "Verily thou doest not well to be angry. The people
perish about the walls, and the war burns hot round the city; and all
for thy sake. Rouse thee, lest it be consumed."
And Paris answered: "Brother, thou hast spoken well. It was not in
wrath that I sat here. I was vexed at my sore defeat. But now my
wife has urged me to join the battle; and truly it is well, for
victory comes now to one and now to another. Wait thou, then, till I
put on my arms, or, if thou wouldst depart, I will overtake thee."
Then spake Helen with soothing words: "O my brother, come in, sit
thee down in this chair, for my heart is weary because of my sin and
of the sin of my husband. Verily Zeus hath ordained for us an evil
fate, so that our story shall be sung in days that are yet to come."
But Hector said: "Ask me not to rest, for I am eager to help the men
of Troy, for verily their need is sore. But do thou urge thy husband
that he overtake me while I am yet within the city, for now I go to
my home that I may see my wife and my little son, because I know not
whether I shall return to them again."
So Hector departed and went to his own home, seeking his wife
Andromache, but found her not, for she was on a tower of the wall
with her child and her child's nurse, weeping sore for fear. And
Hector spake to the maids:--
"Tell me, whither went the white-armed Andromache; to see some
sister-in-law, or to the temple of Athene with the mothers of Troy?"
"Nay," said an aged woman, keeper of the house. "She went to one of
the towers of the wall, for she had heard that the Greeks were
pressing our people hard. She hasted as if she were mad, and the
nurse carried the child."
So Hector ran through the city to the Scæan gates, and there
Andromache spied him, and hasted to meet him. And with her was the
nurse, bearing the young child on her bosom--Hector's only child,
beautiful, headed as a star. His father called him Scamandrius,
after the river, but the sons of Troy called him Astyanax, the
"City-King," because it was his father who saved the city. Silently
he smiled when he saw the child, but Andromache clasped his hand and
wept, and said:--
Sca-man'-dri-us. As-ty'-a-nax.
"O Hector, thy courage will bring thee to death. Thou hast no pity
on thy wife and child, but sparest not thyself, and all the Greeks
will rush on thee and slay thee. It were better for me, losing thee,
to die; for I have no comfort but thee. My father is dead, for
Achilles slew him. Seven brethren I had, and they all fell in one
day by the hand of the great Achilles. And my mother, she is dead,
for when she had been ransomed, Artemis smote her with an arrow in
her father's house. But thou art father to me, and mother, and
brother, and husband also. Have pity, then, and stay here upon the
wall, lest thou leave me a widow and thy child an orphan. And set
the people here in array by this fig tree, where the city is easiest
to be taken; for there come the bravest of the Greeks."
Ar'-te-mis.
But Hector said: "Nay, let these things be my care. I would not that
any son or daughter of Troy should see me skulking from the war. And
my own heart loathes the thought, and bids me fight in the front.
Well I know, indeed, that Priam, and the people of Priam, and holy
Troy, will perish. Yet it is not for Troy, or for the people, or
even for my father or my mother that I care so much, as for thee in
the day when some Greek shall carry thee away captive, and thou shalt
ply the loom or carry the pitcher in the land of Greece. And some
one shall say when he sees thee, 'This was Hector's wife, who was the
bravest of the sons of Troy.' May the earth cover me before that
day!"
Then Hector stretched out his arms to his child. But the child drew
back into the bosom of his nurse, with a loud cry, fearing the
shining bronze and the horse-hair plume which nodded awfully from his
helmet top. Then father and mother laughed aloud. And Hector took
the helmet from his head, and laid it on the ground, and caught his
child in his hands, and kissed him and dandled him, praying aloud to
Father Zeus and all the gods.
"Grant, Father Zeus and all ye gods, that this child may be as I am,
great among the sons of Troy; and may they say some day, when they
see him carrying home the bloody spoils from the war. 'A better man
than his father, this,' and his mother shall be glad at heart."
Then he gave the child to his mother, and she clasped him to her
breast, and smiled a tearful smile. And her husband's heart was
moved; and he stroked her with his hand, and spake:--
"Be not troubled over much. No man shall slay me against the
ordering of fate; but as for fate, that, methinks, no man may escape,
be he coward or brave. But go, ply thy tasks, the shuttle and the
loom, and give their tasks to thy maidens, and let men take thought
for the battle."
Then Hector took up his helmet from the ground, and Andromache went
her way to her home, oft turning back her eyes. And when she was
come, she and all her maidens wailed for the living Hector as though
he were dead, for she thought that she should never see him any more
returning safe from the battle.
And as Hector went his way, Paris came running, clad in shining arms,
like to some proud steed which has been fed high in his stall, and
now scours the plain with head aloft and mane streaming over his
shoulders. And he spake to Hector:--
"I have kept thee, I fear, when thou wast in haste, nor came at thy
bidding."
But Hector answered: "No man can blame thy courage, only thou
wilfully heldest back from the battle. Therefore do the sons of Troy
speak shame of thee. But now let us go to the war."
So they went together out of the gates, and fell upon the hosts of
the Greeks and slew many chiefs of fame, and Glaucus the Lycian went
with them.