(COPIED FROM WEBSITE - http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joelja/iliad.html)
 
 

ANDROMACHE

With this he laid the child again in the arms of his wife, who

took him to her own soft bosom, smiling through her tears. As her

husband watched her his heart yearned towards her and he caressed

her fondly, saying, "My own wife, do not take these things too

bitterly to heart. No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time,

but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is

no escape for him when he has once been born. Go, then, within the

house, and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your

distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for war is man's matter,

and mine above all others of them that have been born in Ilius."

He took his plumed helmet from the ground, and his wife went back

again to her house, weeping bitterly and often looking back towards

him. When she reached her home she found her maidens within, and

bade them all join in her lament; so they mourned Hector in his own

house though he was yet alive, for they deemed that they should

never see him return safe from battle, and from the furious hands of

the Achaeans.

BOOK 6