First the procession passed by the Scæan gate, that the Trojans standing there upon the walls might see it. There sat old Priam and his spouse Hecuba, without any warning of the outcome of the combat. What a horrible sight for the venerable father and loving mother! Their bravest son, the pride and hope of Troy, dragged at the wheels of the victor’s chariot! All Troy set up a despairing lament, as though the city were already in ruins and a prey to devouring flames. His mother, almost beside herself with grief, wrung her hands, and shrieking, pulled the veil from her head and tore her gray hair. And his father was scarcely to be restrained from going down to cut his son loose or die across his mutilated body. He called on those by name who stood about it; begged, implored, wept, and threw himself on the ground, strewing dust on his gray head. And all those who saw it wept with him. Hector’s faithful wife, Andromache, was the last to learn the sad tidings, for she had been busy in her home attending to household duties among her women. And now, as twilight fell, she sent one of her maids to heat water in a tripod for the hero’s bath when he should return. From a distance arose a sound of loud lamentation and wailing of women. The wife trembled and sad foreboding filled her heart. “Follow me,” she cried to two of the maids. “My knees are trembling, for I fear the noble Achilles has cut off the valiant Hector from the city, for he is always before all others and fears no one.” She rushed out, the servants following after her. There was nobody to be seen in the street; the cries came from the walls. The unhappy woman hastened thither. One look revealed the tragedy, and she sank down in a swoon. She lay for long as one dead, and at length, when consciousness returned, she began in a low, broken voice: “Hector! Alas, the unhappy people! Oh, that I had never been born! Now must thou go down to Hades and I remain here a widow, miserable and deserted. And thy young son—trouble and sorrow menace his future now that thou art gone—for others will seek to take his patrimony—and his childhood shall pass without a friend. For an orphaned child has no playmates; and when the other boys take their share of their fathers’ feast, none calls the orphan boy to divide with him. The child casts down his eyes ashamed and weeps silently. Then, hungry, he goes about among his father’s friends, pulls one by the coat, another by the cloak; and if one of them is kindly inclined, he will perhaps hold the goblet to his lips. But, alas, he does not give him his fill. The other boys, insolent and greedy, do not suffer him at their feasts, but push him away, crying: ‘Thy father doth not sit at our feasts.’ Then the child goes away and cries in his mother’s arms. O ye gods, my Astyanax! How gayly his father used to rock him on his knees! And now, robbed of a tender father, he shall suffer much—our Astyanax, as the Trojans call him.”