Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/35

Rh 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 all at last,

Slain by the pitiless 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 thy loom,

And from the fountain of Messeïs draw

Water, or from the Hypereian spring,

Constrained unwillingly by some cruel lot.

And then shall some one say that 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. O let the earth

Be heaped above my head in death before

I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!"

So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms

To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back

To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see

His father helmeted in glittering brass,

And eyeing with affright the horse-hair plume

That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.

At this both parents in their fondness laughed;

And hastily the mighty Hector took

The helmet from his brow and laid it down

Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed

His darling son and tossed him up in play.

Prayed thus to Jove and all the gods of heaven:

"O Jupiter and all ye deities,