"Alas, my son," she cried, "what have I left to live for now that you are no more?
Night and day did I glory in you throughout the city, for you were a tower of strength to all in Troy, and both men and women alike hailed you as a god.

So long as you lived you were their pride, but now death and destruction have fallen upon you." Hector's wife had as yet heard nothing, for no one had come to tell her that her husband had remained without the gates.

She was at her loom in an inner part of the house, weaving a double purple web, and embroidering it with many flowers.

She told her maids to set a large tripod on the fire, so as to have a warm bath ready for Hector when he came out of battle; poor woman, she knew not that he was now beyond the reach of baths, and that Minerva had laid him low by the hands of Achilles.

She heard the cry coming as from the wall, and trembled in every limb; the shuttle fell from her hands, and again she spoke to her waiting-women.