"Hector," she cried, "dearest to me of all my children.

So long as you were alive the gods loved you well, and even in death they have not been utterly unmindful of you; for when Achilles took any other of my sons, he would sell him beyond the seas, to Samos Imbrus or rugged Lemnos; and when he had slain you too with his sword, many a time did he drag you round the sepulchre of his comrade--though this could not give him life--yet here you lie all fresh as dew, and comely as one whom Apollo has slain with his painless shafts." Thus did she too speak through her tears with bitter moan, and then Helen for a third time took up the strain of lamentation.

"Hector," said she, "dearest of all my brothers-in-law--for I am wife to Alexandrus who brought me hither to Troy--would that I had died ere he did so--twenty years are come and gone since I left my home and came from over the sea, but I have never heard one word of insult or unkindness from you.

When another would chide with me, as it might be one of your brothers or sisters or of your brothers' wives, or my mother-in-law--for Priam was as kind to me as though he were my own father--you would rebuke and check them with words of gentleness and goodwill.

Therefore my tears flow both for you and for my unhappy self, for there is no one else in Troy who is kind to me, but all shrink and shudder as they go by me." She wept as she spoke and the vast crowd that was gathered round her joined in her lament.