“Dear Hector,” spake gracious Helen sadly, “how it grieves me to see you all engaged in this cruel war, for the sake of a contemptible woman like myself. O that I had been destroyed at birth or had been flung into the sea! Or, if the gods have destined me to such misfortune, would at least that I had fallen into the hands of a brave man, who would take the disgrace and reproaches of his family to heart and could wipe out his shame by heroic deeds. But Paris is not a man. Enter and be seated, Hector, for thou has toiled most arduously in my behalf and suffered most for thy brother’s crime.” “Thy gracious invitation I may not accept,” answered Hector, “for my heart urges me to return to aid the Trojans. I beg thee persuade Paris to overtake me before I leave the city. Now I must go to my own house to see my wife once more and little son; for who knoweth whether I shall ever return?” He did not find his spouse at home, but on the tower at the Scæan gate, where she was following the fate of the Trojans. As he neared the gate she came to meet him, the modest, sensible Andromache, and behind her came the nurse with the little boy. His loving wife took him tenderly by the hand and wept over him. “Thy courage will surely be thy death,” she said. “Take pity on thy miserable wife and infant son, for the Achaians will surely kill thee, and then I had best sink into the earth; for what would remain for me? I am alone. Hector, thou art father and mother and brother to me, my precious husband. Take pity on me and remain in the tower. Do not make me a widow and thy son an orphan.” Hector answered: “Dearly beloved, I am troubled also at thy fate, but I could not face the Trojan people if I shunned danger like a coward. True, I foresee the day when sacred Ilium will fall, bringing disaster upon the king and all the people, and thy fate touches me more nearly than that of father, mother, or brothers. Thou mayest be carried away to slavery in Argos to labor for a cruel mistress. Rather would I be in the grave than see thee in misery.” Sadly the hero stretched out his arms to his boy, but the child hid his face in the nurse’s bosom, terrified at the helmet with its fluttering plumes. Smiling, the father took it off and laid it on the ground, and now the boy went to him willingly. He kissed the child tenderly, and turning his eyes heavenward prayed fervently; “Jupiter and ye other gods, grant that my boy may be a leader among the Trojans like his father and powerful in Ilium, that sometime it may be said: ‘He is much greater than his father.’ May his mother rejoice in him.”