the sight. 880
  Ye sons of Ilium and ye daughters, haste,
  Haste all to look on Hector, if ye e’er
  With joy beheld him, while he yet survived,
  From fight returning; for all Ilium erst
  In him, and all her citizens rejoiced. 885
    She spake.  Then neither male nor female more
  In Troy remain’d, such sorrow seized on all. 
  Issuing from the city-gate, they met
  Priam conducting, sad, the body home,
  And, foremost of them all, the mother flew 890
  And wife of Hector to the bier, on which
  Their torn-off tresses with unsparing hands
  They shower’d, while all the people wept around. 
  All day, and to the going down of day
  They thus had mourn’d the dead before the gates, 895
  Had not their Sovereign from his chariot-seat
  Thus spoken to the multitude around. 
    Fall back on either side, and let the mules
  Pass on; the body in my palace once
  Deposited, ye then may weep your fill. 900
    He said; they, opening, gave the litter way. 
  Arrived within the royal house, they stretch’d
  The breathless Hector on a sumptuous bed,
  And singers placed beside him, who should chant
  The strain funereal; they with many a groan 905
  The dirge began, and still, at every close,
  The female train with many a groan replied. 
  Then, in the midst, Andromache white-arm’d
  Between her palms the dreadful Hector’s head
  Pressing, her lamentation thus began. 910
    [17]My hero! thou hast fallen in prime of life,
  Me leaving here desolate, and the fruit
  Of our ill-fated loves, a helpless child,
  Whom grown to manhood I despair to see. 
  For ere that day arrive, down from her height 915
  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, 920
  And I among the rest.  But thee, my child! 
  Either thy fate shall with thy mother send
  Captive into a land where thou shalt serve
  In sordid drudgery some cruel lord,
  Or haply some Achaian here, thy hand 925
  Seizing, shall hurl thee from a turret-top
  To a sad death, avenging brother, son,
  Or father by the hands of Hector slain;
  For he made many a Grecian bite the ground. 
  Thy father, boy, bore never into fight 930
  A milky mind, and for that self-same cause
  Is now bewail’d in every house of Troy. 
  Sorrow unutterable thou hast caused
  Thy parents, Hector! but to me hast left
  Largest bequest of misery, to whom, 935
  Dying, thou neither didst thy arms extend