-return my
body unconsumed to my mother, and let her not purchase for me with gold,
but with tears, the sad privilege of a sepulchre. When {in former times}
she could, then used she to purchase with gold."

{Thus} she said; but the people did not restrain those tears which she
restrained. Even the priest himself, weeping and reluctant, divided her
presented breast with the piercing steel. She, sinking to the earth on
her failing knees, maintained an undaunted countenance to the last
moment of her life. Even then was it her care, when she fell, to cover
the features that ought to be concealed, and to preserve the honour of
her chaste modesty. The Trojan matrons received her, and reckoned the
children of Priam whom they had had to deplore; and how much blood one
house had expended. And they lament thee, Oh virgin! and thee, Oh thou!
so lately called a royal wife {and} a royal mother, {once} the
resemblance of flourishing Asia, but now a worthless prey amid the
plunder {of Troy}; which the conquering Ulysses would have declined as
his, but that thou hadst brought Hector forth. {And} scarce did Hector
find an owner for his mother. She, embracing the body bereft of a soul
so brave, gave to that as well, those tears which so oft she had given
for her country, her children, and her husband; {and} her tears she
poured in his wounds. And she impressed kisses with her lips, and beat
her breast {now} accustomed to it; and trailing her grey hairs in the
clotted blood, many things indeed did she say, but these as well, as she
tore her breast:

"My daughter, the last affliction (for what now remains?) to thy mother:
my daughter, thou liest prostrate, and I behold thy wound {as} my own
wounds. Lo! lest I should have lost any one of my children without
bloodshed, thou, too, dost receive thy wound. Still, because {thou wast}
a woman, I supposed thee safe from the sword; and {yet}, a woman, thou
hast fallen by the sword. The same Achilles, the ruin of Troy, and the
bereaver of myself, the same has destroyed thus many of thy brothers,
{and} thyself. But, after he had fallen by the arrows of Paris and of
Phoebus, 'Now, at least,' I said, 'Achilles is no {longer} to be
dreaded;' and yet even now, was he to be dreaded by me. The very ashes
of him, as he lies buried, rage against this family; and {even} in the
tomb have we found him an enemy. For the descendant of AEacus have I been
{thus} prolific. Great Ilion lies prostrate, and the public