"Who art thou?" he asked. "I have never seen thee before in battle, yet now thou hast gone far beyond all others in hardihood, for thou hast awaited my onset, and they are hapless whose sons meet my strength. If thou art a god, I will not fight with thee; but if thou art one of those who eat the fruit of the earth, come near, that thou mayest the quicker get thee to the gates of death." In answer, Glaucus said: "Why askest thou my lineage? As is the life of leaves, so is that of men. The leaves are scattered some of them to the earth by the wind, others the wood putteth forth when it is in bloom, and they come on in the season of spring. Even so of men one generation groweth, another ceaseth." He then told how he was a family friend of Diomedes and made with him a compact that if they met in battle they should avoid each the other; this they sealed by the exchange of armour, wherein the Greek had the better, getting gold weapons for bronze, the worth of a hundred oxen for the value of nine. Coming to Troy Hector bade his mother offer Athena the finest robe she had; yet all in vain, for the goddess rejected it. Passing to the house of Paris, he found him polishing his armour, Helen at his side. Again rebuking him, he had from him a promise that he would be ready to re-enter the fight when Hector had been to his own house to see his wife Andromache. Hector's heart foreboded that it was the last time he would speak with her. She had with her their little son Astyanax. Weeping she besought him to spare himself for her sake. "For me there will be no other comfort if thou meetest thy doom, but sorrow. Father and mother have I none, for Achilles hath slain them and my seven brothers. Hector, thou art my father and my lady mother and my brother and thou art my wedded husband. Nay, come, pity me and abide on the wall, lest thou make thy son an orphan and thy wife a widow." He answered, his heart heavy with a sense of coming death: "The day will come when Troy shall fall, yet I grieve not for father or mother or brethren so much as for thee, when some Achaean leads thee captive, robbing thee of thy day of freedom. Thou shalt weave at the loom in Argos or perchance fetch water, for heavy necessity shall be laid upon thee. Then shall many a one say when he sees thee shedding tears: 'Lo, this is the wife of Hector who was the best warrior of the Trojans when they fought for their town.' Thus will they speak and thou shalt have new sorrow for lack of such a man to drive away the day of slavery."