"Hector! dear Hector! do not meet this terrible man alone, for he is far mightier than thou, and knoweth no pity. Already hath he robbed me of many a brave son; and now I no longer see two of my children, Lycaon and the goodly Polydorus, whom Laothoë, princess among women, bare to me. But the death of others will cause us briefer grief, if thou, dear Hector, art not slain. Come, then, within the walls, and save the men and women of Troy! And have pity on me, too, to whom the son of Cronos hath allotted a terrible doom in my old age--to see my brave sons dragged away, and my fair daughters carried off, as captives, by the cruel hands of the Achaians. Last of all, I too shall be torn, on my own threshold, by ravenous dogs--even the dogs which I myself have reared with food from my table, to guard my house. They will tear my flesh and drink my blood! It may well become a _young_ man to lie slain on the field, for he is highly honored in his death; but when dogs defile an old man's head and beard, this is the most lamentable thing that befalleth wretched mortals." And the old man tore his hair in his sore agony; but even he prevailed not with the soul of Hector. And then his dear mother, Hecuba, took up the plaint and spake through her piteous tears. "Hector! my child! have respect to the mother who bare thee and nursed thee on this bosom! Pity _me_! and fight the foe from this side of the wall! For if he slay thee, not on a funeral bed shall I, and thy dear wife, won by so many gifts, deplore thee; but the swift dogs shall devour thee, far away from us, by the black ships of the Argives."