Page:The Story of the Iliad.djvu/354

310 was close to the gates: his wife led the way, and his mother and all the multitude followed. And in truth they would have kept it thus till evening, weeping and wailing, but King Priam spake:— "Let us pass; ye shall have enough of wailing when we have taken him to his home." So they took him to his home and laid him on his bed. And the minstrels lamented, and the women wailed.

Then first of all came Andromaché, his wife, and cried:— "O my husband, thou hast perished in thy youth, and I am left in widowhood, and our child, thy child and mine, is but an infant! I fear me he will not grow to manhood. Ere that day this city will fall, for thou art gone who wast its defender. Soon will they carry us away, mothers and children, in the ships, and thou, my son, perchance will be with us, and serve the stranger in unseemly bondage; or, it may be, some Greek will slay thee, seizing thee and dashing thee from the wall; some Greek whose brother, or father, or son, Hector has slain in the battle. Many a Greek did Hector