A widow.’
But Hector, though he dearly loved his wife, could not shrink from the battle. As Andromache ceased to plead with him, he held out his arms to his little son, but the child drew back in fear of the great plumes that waved on his father’s shining helmet.
Then Hector took off his helmet and laid it on the ground, while he caught his child in his arms and kissed him, praying Zeus and all the gods to defend him.
Andromache gazed pitifully at her husband as, at length, he gave the child to its nurse, and he seeing her great grief, took her hand and said:
‘Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.
No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
But go thou home and tend thy labours there,
The web, the distaff, and command thy maids