With this, Hector of the gleaming helm departed for his fine house, but failed to find white-armed
Andromache at home. She had gone with her son and a fair companion, to the battlements,
where she stood in tears and sorrow. Failing to find his peerless wife, Hector stood at
the threshold and spoke to her servants: 'Tell me, you maids, where is white-armed Andromache?
Is she visiting one of my sisters, or my noble brothers' fair wives, or has she gone to Athene's
shrine, where the rest of Troy's noble women seek to influence the dread goddess?'
'Hector,' a busy housemaid replied, 'if you wish to know the truth, she has done none
of those things, but hearing our men were hard pressed, and the Greeks had won a great
victory, she rushed to the battlements, in great distress, and the nurse followed carrying
your son.' At this, Hector sped from the house and retraced
his path through the broad streets. When, after crossing the city, he reached the Scaean
Gate by which he intended to leave, his wife came running to meet him. Richly-dowered,
Andromache was the daughter of brave Eëtion, who lived in Thebe below wooded Placus, and
ruled the Cilicians. Now she ran to her bronze-clad husband, and the nurse was with her, holding
a little boy in her arms, a baby son, Hector's bright star. Hector called him Scamandrius,
but the rest Astyanax, since, to them, Hector alone protected Ilium. Hector smiled, and
gazed at his son in silence, but Andromache crept weeping to his side, and clasped his
hand, saying: 'Husband, this courage of yours dooms you. You show no pity for your little
son or your wretched wife, whom you'll soon make a widow. The Achaeans must soon join
arms against you, and destroy you. If I lose you I were better dead, for should you meet
your fate, there will be no more joy for me only sorrow. I have no royal father or mother.
Achilles killed my noble father when he sacked Cicilian Thebe, that many-peopled city with
its high gates. But he shrank from despoiling Eëtion though he slew him, sending him to
the pyre in his ornate armour, and heaping a mound above him, round which the mountain-nymphs,
daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted elm trees. And seven brothers of mine, swift-footed
mighty Achilles sent to Hades, all on a day, killing them there among their shambling-gaited
cattle and white fleecy sheep. My mother, queen below wooded Placus, he dragged here
with the rest of his spoils, but freed her for a princely ransom, only for Artemis of
the bow to slay her in her father's house. Hector you are parent, brother, husband to
me. Take pity on me now, and stay here on the battlements, don't make your son an orphan
your wife a widow. Station your men above the fig-tree there, where the wall's most
easily scaled, and the city lies then wide open. Thrice their best men led by the two
Aiantes, great Idomeneus, the Atreidae, and brave Diomedes, have tested the wall there.
Someone skilled in divining has told them, or maybe their own experience urges them to
try.'
'Lady,' said Hector of the gleaming helm, 'I too am concerned, but if I hid from the
fighting like a coward, I would be shamed before all the Trojans and their wives in
their trailing robes. Nor is it my instinct, since I have striven ever to excel always
in the vanguard of the battle, seeking to win great glory for my father and myself.
And deep in my heart I know the day is coming when sacred Ilium will fall, Priam, and his
people of the ashen spear. But the thought of the sad fate to come, not even Hecabe's
or Priam's, nor my many noble brothers' who will bite the dust at the hands of their foes,
not even that sorrow moves me as does the thought of your grief when some bronze-clad
Greek drags you away weeping, robbing you of your freedom. Perhaps in Argos you'll toil
at the loom at some other woman's whim, or bear water all unwillingly from some spring,
Messeïs or Hypereia, bowed down by the yoke of necessity. Seeing your tears, they will
say: 'There goes the wife of Hector, foremost of all the horse-taming Trojans, when the
battle raged at Troy.' And you will sorrow afresh at those words, lacking a man like
me to save you from bondage. May I be dead, and the earth piled above me, before I hear
your cries as they drag you away.' With this, glorious Hector held out his arms
to take his son, but the child, alarmed at sight of his father, shrank back with a cry
on his fair nurse's breast, fearing the helmet's bronze and the horsehair crest nodding darkly
at him. His father and mother smiled, and glorious Hector doffed the shining helmet
at once and laid it on the ground. Then he kissed his beloved son, dandled him in his
arms, and prayed aloud: 'Zeus, and all you gods, grant that this boy like me may be foremost
among the Trojans, as mighty in strength, and a powerful leader of Ilium. And some day
may they say of him, as he returns from war, "He's a better man than his father", and may
he bear home the blood-stained armour of those he has slain, so his mother's heart may rejoice.'
With this he placed the child in his dear wife's arms, and she took him to her fragrant
breast, smiling through her tears. Her husband was touched with pity at this, and stroked
her with his hand, saying: 'Andromache, dear wife, don't grieve for me too deeply yet.
None will send me to Hades before my time: though no man, noble or humble, once born
can escape his fate. Go home, and attend to your tasks, the loom and spindle, and see
the maids work hard. War is a man's concern, the business of every man in Ilium, and mine
above all.'