Seven brothers had I in my father's house,
And all went down to Hades in one day:
Achilles the swift-footed slew them all,
Among their slow-paced beeves and snow-white flocks.
My mother, princess on the woody slopes
Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away,
And only for large ransom gave her back.
But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down
Within her father's palace. Hector, thou
Art father and dear mother now to me,
And brother, and my youthful spouse besides.
In pity keep within the fortress here,
Nor make thy child an orphan, nor thy wife
A widow. Post thine army near the place
Of the wild fig-tree, where the city-walls
Are low, and may be scaled. Thrice, in the war,
The boldest of the foe have tried the spot:
The brothers Ajax, famed Idomeneus,
The two chiefs born to Atreus, and the brave
Tydides: whether counselled to the attempt
By some wise seer, or prompted from within."
Then answered Hector great in war:--"All this,
Dear wife, I bear in mind; but I should stand
Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames
Of Troy, were I to keep aloof, and shun
The battle, coward-like. Not thus my heart
Prompts me; for greatly have I learned to dare
And strike among the foremost sons of Troy,
Upholding my great father's fame and mine.
But well in my undoubting mind I know
The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
And Priam, and the people over whom
Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.
But not the sorrows of the Trojan race,
Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those
Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait
My brothers many and brave, who yet, at last,
Slain by the leaguering foe, shall lie in dust,
Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek
Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee
Thy day of freedom. Thou, in Argos, then,
Shalt, at another's bidding, ply the loom,
Or from the fountain of Messeis draw
Water, or from the Hypereian spring,
Constrained, unwilling, by thy cruel lot.
And then shall some one say, who sees thee weep,
'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned
Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought
Around their city.' So shall some one say;
And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him
Who haply might have kept afar the day
Of thy captivity. Oh, let the earth
Be heaped a