e a common lot we were born, you
at Troy in the house of Priam, and I at Thebes under the wooded
mountain of Placus in the house of Eetion who brought me up when I was
a child--ill-starred sire of an ill-starred daughter--would that he had
never begotten me. You are now going into the house of Hades under the
secret places of the earth, and you leave me a sorrowing widow in your
house. The child, of whom you and I are the unhappy parents, is as yet
a mere infant. Now that you are gone, O Hector, you can do nothing for
him nor he for you. Even though he escape the horrors of this woeful
war with the Achaeans, yet shall his life henceforth be one of labour
and sorrow, for others will seize his lands. The day that robs a child
of his parents severs him from his own kind; his head is bowed, his
cheeks are wet with tears, and he will go about destitute among the
friends of his father, plucking one by the cloak and another by the
shirt. Some one or other of these may so far pity him as to hold the
cup for a moment towards him and let him moisten his lips, but he must
not drink enough to wet the roof of his mouth; then one whose parents
are alive will drive him from the table with blows and angry words.
'Out with you,' he will say, 'you have no father here,' and the child
will go crying back to his widowed mother--he, Astyanax, who erewhile
would sit upon his father's knees, and have none but the daintiest and
choicest morsels set before him. When he had played till he was tired
and went to sleep, he would lie in a bed, in the arms of his nurse, on
a soft couch, knowing neither want nor care, whereas now that he has
lost his father his lot will be full of hardship--he, whom the Trojans
name Astyanax, because you, O Hector, were the only defence of their
gates and battlements. The wriggling writhing worms will now eat you at
the ships, far from your parents, when the dogs have glutted themselves
upon you. You will lie naked, although in your house you have fine and
goodly raiment made by hands of women. This will I now burn; it is of
no use to you, for you can never again wear it, and thus you will have
respect shown you by the Trojans both men and women."

In such wise did she cry aloud amid her tears, and the women joined in
her lament.

BOOK XXIII

The funeral of Patroclus, and the funeral games.

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the Achaeans
when they reached the Hellespont went back every