nd
nigh unto death. When she had recovered from her swoon, she sobbed and
wailed, crying, "O Hector! to the same evil fate were we twain born, thou
in Troy, and I in Thebes, where my great father, Eetion, reared me as a
little child. Would that I had never been born, since thou leavest me a
hapless widow! And our son, thine and mine, ill-fated one! is but a little
child; and thou canst no more profit him, nor he be a joy to thee, since
thou art dead! A helpless orphan, he is cut off from his playmates; and if
he pluck the robe of his father's friends, one may, in pity, just hold the
cup to his lips, but give him not to satisfy his hunger and his thirst;
while other children, whose parents still live, will drive him from their
feast, with taunts and blows, saying, 'Away with thee! thou hast no father
at our table!' Then will he come back to me, his lonely mother; he, who so
lately sat on his father's knee, and fed on the choicest of food! and when
sleep fell upon him, tired with his childish play, he nestled in a soft
bed in his nurse's arms. But now that his father is no more, he shall
suffer untold griefs, even he whom the Trojans called 'Astyanax,' king of
the city, because thou, O my beloved lord! wert the sole defense and glory
of their lofty walls." Thus wailed the fair Andromache; and the women
moaned around her.

THE FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOR OF PATROCLUS

By Walter C. Perry

The noble Achilles could not do enough in honor of his lost friend,
Patroclus, and he had determined to hold games, of every kind, in which
the mail-clad Achaians might compete for prizes; and to this end he had
brought goodly treasures from his ships,--tripods, and caldrons, horses,
mules, and oxen, well-girdled women, and hoary iron. The first and most
important contest was a chariot race, for which he offered a woman skilled
in needlework, and a two-handled tripod, holding two-and-twenty
measures--these, for the best man of all; the second prize was a mare, six
years old, with a mule foal; the third prize was a fair new caldron, of
four measures; the fourth was two talents of bright gold; the fifth was a
two-handled vase, untarnished by the fire.

And Achilles addressed the chiefs, and said, "If the race were in honor of
some other warrior, then should I enter the lists, and bear away the
prize; for ye know that my horses are immortal, and by far the best;
Neptune, the Earth-Girdler, gave them to my father, and he to me. But I
an