Thy mind, inflam’d with others’ good, will set thyself on fire. Nor pitiest thou thy son, nor wife, who must thy widow be, If now thou issue; all the field will only run on thee. Better my shoulders underwent the earth, than thy decease; For then would earth bear joys no more; then comes the black increase Of griefs (like Greeks on Ilion). Alas! What one survives To be my refuge? One black day bereft sev’n brothers’ lives, By stern Achilles; by his hand my father breath’d his last, His high-wall’d rich Cilician Thebes[5] sack’d by him, and laid wast; The royal body yet he left unspoil’d; religion charm’d That act of spoil; and all in fire he burn’d him cómplete arm’d; Built over him a royal tomb; and to the monument He left of him, th’ Oreades (that are the high descent Of Ægis-bearing Jupiter) another of their own Did add to it, and set it round with elms; by which is shown, In theirs, the barrenness of death; yet might it serve beside To shelter the sad monument from all the ruffinous pride Of storms and tempests, us’d to hurt things of that noble kind, The short life yet my mother liv’d he sav’d, and serv’d his mind With all the riches of the realm; which not enough esteem’d He kept her pris’ner; whom small time, but much more wealth, redeem’d, And she, in sylvan Hypoplace, Cilicia rul’d again, But soon was over-rul’d by death; Diana’s chaste disdain Gave her a lance, and took her life. Yet, all these gone from me, Thou amply render’st all; thy life makes still my father be, My mother, brothers; and besides thou art my husband too, Most lov’d, most worthy. Pity them, dear love, and do not go, For thou gone, all these go again; pity our common joy, Lest, of a father’s patronage, the bulwark of all Troy, Thou leav’st him a poor widow’s charge. Stay, stay then, in this tow’r, And call up to the wild fig-tree all thy retiréd pow’r; For there the wall is easiest scal’d, and fittest for surprise, And there, th’ Ajaces, Idomen, th’ Atrides, Diomed, thrice Have both survey’d and made attempt; I know not if induc’d By some wise augury, or the fact was naturally infus’d Into their wits, or courages.” To this, great Hector said: “Be well assur’d, wife, all these things in my kind cares are weigh’d. But what a shame, and fear, it is to think how Troy would scorn (Both in her husbands, and her wives, whom long-train’d gowns adorn) That I should cowardly fly off! The spirit I first did breath Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was, Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass Without improvement. In this fire must Hector’s trial shine; Here must his country, father, friends, be, in him, made divine. And such a stormy day shall come (in mind and soul I know) When sacred Troy shall shed her tow’rs, for tears of overthrow; When Priam, all his birth and pow’r, shall in those tears be drown’d. But neither Troy’s posterity so much my soul doth wound,