He said: but Hector of the glancing helm Made answer none; then thus with gentle tones Helen accosted him: “Dear brother mine, (Of me, degraded, sorrow-bringing, vile!) Oh that the day my mother gave me birth Some storm had on the mountains cast me forth! Or that the many-dashing ocean’s waves Had swept me off, ere all this woe were wrought! Yet if these evils were of Heav’n ordain’d, Would that a better man had call’d me wife; A sounder judge of honour and disgrace: For he, thou know’st, no firmness hath of mind, Nor ever will; a want he well may rue. But come thou in, and rest thee here awhile, Dear brother, on this couch; for travail sore Encompasseth thy soul, by me impos’d, Degraded as I am, and Paris’ guilt; On whom this burthen Heav’n hath laid, that shame On both our names through years to come shall rest.” To whom great Hector of the glancing helm: “Though kind thy wish, yet, Helen, ask me not To sit or rest; I cannot yield to thee: For to the succour of our friends I haste, Who feel my loss, and sorely need my aid. But thou thy husband rouse, and let him speed, That he may find me still within the walls. For I too homeward go; to see once more My household, and my wife, and infant child: For whether I may e’er again return, I know not, or if Heav’n have so decreed, That I this day by Grecian hands should fall.” Thus saying, Hector of the glancing helm Turn’d to depart; with rapid step he reach’d His own well-furnished house, but found not there His white-arm’d spouse, the fair Andromache. She with her infant child and maid the while Was standing, bath’d in tears, in bitter grief, On Ilium’s topmost tower: but when her Lord Found not within the house his peerless wife, Upon the threshold pausing, thus he spoke: “Tell me, my maidens, tell me true, which way Your mistress went, the fair Andromache; Or to my sisters, or my brothers’ wives? Or to the temple where the fair-hair’d dames Of Troy invoke Minerva’s awful name?” To whom the matron of his house replied: “Hector, if truly we must answer thee, Not to thy sisters, nor thy brothers’ wives, Nor to the temple where the fair-hair’d dames Of Troy invoke Minerva’s awful name, But to the height of Ilium’s topmost tow’r Andromache is gone; since tidings came The Trojan force was overmatch’d, and great The Grecian strength; whereat, like one distract, She hurried to the walls, and with her took, Borne in the nurse’s arms, her infant child.”