“Thus saying she sped through the chamber like one mad, with beating
heart, and with her went her handmaidens. But when she came to the
battlements and the throng of men, she stood still upon the wall and
gazed, and beheld him dragged before the city:—swift horses dragged him
recklessly toward the hollow ships of the Achaians. Then dark night came
on her eyes and shrouded her, and she fell backward and gasped forth her
spirit.”[4]
We must not dwell upon the grim vengeance which Achilles took upon the
dead body of Hector, for the life of his friend; nor the wonderful
funeral rites for Patroclus; nor the pitiful story of old Priam’s visit
to Achilles at dead of night, to beg for the body of his great son:
_Before the throne of great Achilles see
The broken king kissing the deadly hands
Whereby his house is left him desolate._[4]
[Illustration:
CAPTIVE ANDROMACHE
_Lord Leighton_
_By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co. 133 New Bond St. W._
]
But when the poor insulted body was at last recovered, all the city went
out to meet it and bring it in with lamentation. Andromache led the
women, wailing in her grief: “Husband, thou art gone young from life,
and leavest me a widow in thy halls. And the child is yet but a little
one, child of ill-fated parents, thee and me; nor methinks shall he grow
up to manhood, for ere then shall this city be utterly destroyed. For
thou art verily perished who didst watch over it, who guardest it and
keptest safe its noble wives and infant little ones. These soon shall be
voyaging in the hollow ships, yea and I too with them, and thou, my
child, shalt either go with me unto a place where thou shalt toil at
unseemly tasks, labouring before the face of some harsh lord, or else
some Achaian will take thee by the arm and hurl thee from the
battlement, a grievous death.... And woe unspeakable and mourning hast
thou left to thy parents, Hector, but with me chiefliest shall grievous
pain abide. For neither didst thou stretch thy hands to me from a bed in
thy death, neither didst speak to me some memorable word that I might
have thought on evermore as my tears fall night and day.”[4]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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