Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/45

Rh And, rolling in the dust, entreated all

Who stood around him, calling them by name:

"Refrain, my friends, though kind be your intent.

Let me go forth alone, and at the fleet

Of Greece will I entreat this man of blood

And violence. He may perchance be moved

With reverence for my age, and pity me

In my gray hairs; for such a one as I

Is Peleus, his own father, by whose care

This Greek was reared to be a scourge to Troy,

And, more than all, a cause of grief to me,

So many sons of mine in life's fresh prime

Have fallen by his hand. I mourn for them,

But not with such keen anguish as I mourn

For Hector. Sorrow for his death will bring

My soul to Hades. Would that he had died

Here in my arms! this solace had been ours,

His most unhappy mother and myself

Had stooped to shed these tears upon his bier."

He spake, and wept, and all the citizens

Wept with him. Hecuba among the dames

Took up the lamentation and began:

"Why do I live, my son, when thou art dead,

And I so wretched?—thou who wert my boast

Ever, by night and day, where'er I went.

And whom the Trojan men and matrons called

Their bulwark, honoring thee as if thou wert

A god. They glory in thy might no more,

Since fate and death have overtaken thee."

Weeping she spake. Meantime Andromache

Had heard no tidings of her husband yet.

No messenger had even come to say

That he was still without the gates. She sat

In a recess of those magnificent halls,