My hero! thou hast fall'n in prime of life, Me leaving here a widow, and the fruit Of our ill-fated loves—a helpless child, Whom grown to manhood I despair to see. For, ere that season, from her topmost height Precipitated shall this city fall, Since thou hast perish'd, once her sure defence, Faithful protector of her spotless wives And all their little ones. Those wives shall soon In Grecian barks capacious hence be borne, And I among the rest. But thou, my child! Shalt either share my fate, ordain'd to drudge Beneath some tyrant in a distant clime, Or, seizing thy weak hand, some furious Greek Shall headlong hurl thee from the tower of Troy To a sad death—whose brother, it may chance, Whose father or whose son brave Hector slew, For he made many a Grecian bite the ground. Thy father, boy, bore never into fight A milky mind, and for that self-same cause Is now bewail'd in ev'ry house of Troy. Sorrow unutterable thou hast caused Thy parents, Hector! but to me hast left Largest bequest of misery, to whom, Dying, thou neither didst thy arms extend Forth from thy bed, nor gav'st me precious word, To be remember'd day and night with tears. So spake she weeping, whom her maidens all With sighs accompanied. (_Hecuba takes up the lament._) Hector! far dearest of my sons to me, Thee living must the gods have also loved, Whose kindness even in the bands of death Attends thee; for what son soe'er of ours Achilles seized besides, to Samos, him, Or Imbrus, or the dreaded Lemnian coast, Far o'er the barren deep, for sale he sent; But thee, poor victim of his ruthless spear, Oft, at his wheels, around Patroclus' tomb He dragg'd as he would waken into life His friend whom thou hadst slain—yet still he slept. But thou, the freshness of a fragrant flower New-gather'd hold'st, and more resemblest far Some youth whom Phœbus with his gentle shafts Hath pierced at home, than one in battle slain. So spake the queen, exciting in all hearts Sorrow immeasurable. (_Helen takes up the lament._)