her came to the temple of Athene that was in the citadel, the priestess of Athene opened the doors to them. They lifted their hands, and cried aloud, and the priestess laid the garment on the knees of the goddess, and spake, saying:

"Lady Athene, that keepest the city, break now the spear of Diomed, and let him fall upon his face before the Scæan gates. So will we sacrifice to thee twelve heifers that have not felt the goad, if only thou wilt have pity upon our town, and on the wives and little ones of 10 the men of Troy."

So she prayed, but Athene heeded not her words.

Meanwhile Hector went to the house of Paris, where it stood on the citadel, near to his own dwelling and the dwelling of Priam. He found him busy with his arms, 15 and the fair Helen sat near him and gave their tasks to her maidens.

When Hector saw his brother, he spake to him bitter words, taunting him, as if it were by reason of his anger that he stood aloof from the battle. "Verily 20 thou doest not well to be angry. The people perish about the walls, and the war burns hot round the city; and all for thy sake. Rouse thee, lest it be consumed."

And Paris answered: "Brother, thou hast spoken 25 well. It was not in wrath that I sat here. I was vexed at my sore defeat. But now my wife has urged me to

join the battle; and truly it is well, for victory comes now to one and now to another. Wait thou, then, till I put on my arms, or, if thou wouldst depart, I will overtake thee."

5 Then spake Helen with soothing words: "O my brother, come in, sit thee down in this chair, for my heart is weary because of my sin and of the sin of my husband. Verily Zeus hath ordained for us an evil fate, so that our story shall be sung in days that are yet to 10 come."

But Hector said: "Ask me not to rest, for I am eager to help the men of Troy, for verily their need is sore. But do thou urge thy husband that he overtake me while I am yet within the city, for now 15 I go to my home that I may see my wife and my little son, because I know not whether I shall return to them again."

So Hector departed and went to his own home, seeking his wife Andromache, but found her not, for she was 20 on a tower of the wall with her child and her child's nurse, weeping sore for fear. And Hector spake to the maids :

"Tell me, whither went the white-armed Andromache, to see some sister-in-law, or to the temple of Athene 25 with the mothers of Troy?"

"Nay," said an aged woman, keeper of the house. "She went to one of the towers of the wall, for she had

heard that the Greeks were pressing our people hard. She hasted as if she were mad, and the nurse carried the child."

So Hector ran through the city to the Scaan gates, and there Andromache spied him, and hasted to meet 5 him. And with her was the nurse, bearing the young child on her bosom Hector's only child, beautiful, headed as a star. His father called him Scamandrius, after the river, but the sons of Troy called him Astyanax, the "City-King," because it was his father who saved 10 the city. Silently he smiled when he saw the child, but Andromache clasped his hand and wept, and said:

"O Hector, thy courage will bring thee to death. Thou hast no pity on thy wife and child, but sparest not thyself, and all the Greeks will rush on thee and 15 slay thee. It were better for me, losing thee, to die; for I have no comfort but thee. My father is dead, for Achilles slew him. Seven brethren I had, and they all fell in one day by the hand of the great Achilles. And my mother, she is dead, for when she had been ran-20 somed, Artemis smote her with an arrow in her father's house. But thou art father to me, and mother, and brother, and husband also. Have pity, then, and stay here upon the wall, lest thou leave me a widow and thy child an orphan. And set the people here in array by 25 this fig tree, where the city is easiest to be taken; for there come the bravest of the Greeks."

But Hector said: "Nay, let these things be my care.

I would not that any son or daughter of Troy should see me skulking from the war. And my own heart loathes the thought, and bids me fight in the front. Well I 5 know, indeed, that Priam, and the people of Priam, and holy Troy, will perish. Yet it is not for Troy, or for the people, or even for my father or my mother that I care so much, as for thee in the day when some Greek shall carry thee away captive, and thou shalt ply the 10 loom or carry the pitcher in the land of Greece. And some one shall say when he sees thee, 'This was Hector's wife, who was the bravest of the sons of Troy.' May the earth cover me before that day!"

Then Hector stretched out his arms to his child. 15 But the child drew back into the bosom of his nurse, with a loud cry, fearing the shining bronze and the horse-hair plume which nodded awfully from his helmet top. Then father and mother laughed aloud. And Hector took the helmet from his head, and laid it on 20 the ground, and caught his child in his hands, and kissed him and dandled him, praying aloud to Father Zeus and all the gods.

"Grant, Father Zeus and all ye gods, that this child may be as I am, great among the sons of Troy; and may 25 they say some day, when they see him carrying home the bloody spoils from the war, 'A better man than his father, this,' and his mother shall be glad at heart.”

Then he gave the child to his mother, and she clasped him to her breast, and smiled a tearful smile. And her husband's heart was moved; and he stroked her with his hand, and spake :

"Be not troubled over much. No man shall slay 5 me against the ordering of fate; but as for fate, that, methinks, no man may escape, be he coward or brave. But go, ply thy tasks, the shuttle and the loom, and give their tasks to thy maidens, and let men take thought for the battle."

10

Then Hector took up his helmet from the ground, and Andromache went her way to her home, oft turning back her eyes. And when she was come, she and all her maidens wailed for the living Hector as though he were dead, for she thought that she should never see 15 him any more returning safe from the battle.

And as Hector went his way, Paris came running, clad in shining arms, like to some proud steed which has been fed high in his stall, and now scours the plain with head aloft and mane streaming over his shoulders. 20 And he spake to Hector:

"I have kept thee, I fear, when thou wast in haste, nor came at thy bidding."

But Hector answered: "No man can blame thy courage, only thou wilfully heldest back from the 25 battle. Therefore do the sons of Troy speak shame of thee. But now let us go to the war."