The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled, And Hector hasted to relieve his child,-- The glittering terrors from his brows unbound And placed the beaming helmet on the ground. Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air, Thus to the gods, preferred a father's prayer: "O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne, And all ye deathless powers! protect my son! Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, Against his country's foes the war to wage. And rise the Hector of the future age! So when, triumphant from successive toils Of heroes slain, he bears the reeking spoils, Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame': While, pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy, His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy."[290] So prayed he, the glorious Hector, foreboding of the future, but little thinking that, when he himself was slain and the city sacked, his starlike son should be cast headlong to death from Troy's high towers, and his dear wife led into captivity as he had dreaded, indeed, and by none other than Neoptolemus, the son of his mortal foe, Achilles. But now Hector laid the boy in the arms of his wife, and she, smiling tearfully, gathered him to her fragrant bosom; and her husband pitied her, and caressed her with his hand, and bade her farewell, saying: "Andromache! my soul's far better part, Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart? No hostile hand can antedate my doom, Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. Fixed is the term to all the race of earth; And such the hard condition of our birth, No force can then resist, no flight can save; All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. No more--but hasten to thy tasks at home, There guide the spindle, and direct the loom; Me glory summons to the martial scene, The field of combat is the sphere for men. Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, The first in danger, as the first in fame."[291] He took up his horsehair crested helmet; and she departed to her home, oft looking back and letting fall big tears, thinking that he would no more come back from battle. =208. Neptune aids the Discouraged Greeks.= But the end was not to be so soon. Hector, returning to the field, challenged the bravest of the Greeks to combat. Nine accepted the challenge; but the lot fell upon Ajax, the son of Telamon. The duel lasted till night, with deeds of valor on both sides; and the heroes parted, each testifying to his foeman's worth. The next day a truce was declared for the burning of the dead; but, soon after, the conflict was renewed, and before the might of Hector and his troops the Greeks were driven back to their trenches.