“Brave son of Tydeus, wherefore set thy mind
My race to know? the generations are
As of the leaves, so also of mankind.
As the leaves fall, now withering in the wind,
And others are put forth, and spring descends,
Such on the earth the race of men we find;
Each in his order a set time attends;
One generation rises and another ends.” (W.)
The young chieftain goes on, nevertheless, to announce his birth and lineage. He is the grandson of the noble Bellerophon—the rider of the wondrous horse Pegasus and the slayer of the monster Chimæra—all of whose exploits he narrates at length, with some disregard to probabilities, in the full roar of the battle round him. It turns out that he and Diomed are bound together by a tie which all of Greek blood scrupulously respected—the rights of hospitality exercised towards each other by some of their ancestors. Such obligations descended from father to son, and served from time to time to mitigate the fierce and vindictive spirit of an age when every man’s hand was in some sort against another. The grandfather of Diomed had been Bellerophon’s guest and friend. So the Greek places his spear in the ground, and vows that he will not raise his arm against Glaucus. There are enough besides of the Trojan allies for him to slay, and Glaucus may find Greeks enough on whom to flesh his valour; but for themselves, the old hereditary bond shall hold good, and in token of amity they will change armour. A good exchange, indeed, for Diomed; for whereas his own is but of the ordinary brass or bronze, the young Lycian’s panoply is richly inlaid with gold—“a hundred oxen’s worth for the worth of nine.” The Greek words have passed into a proverb.
The Trojans are still hard prest, and by the advice of his brother Helenus, who has the gift of soothsaying, and is as it were the domestic priest of the royal household, Hector hastens to the city, and directs his mother Hecuba to go with her matrons in solemn procession to the temple of Pallas, and beseech the goddess to withdraw the terrible Diomed from the field. In the palace, to his indignation, he finds Paris dallying with Helen, and polishing his armour instead of joining the fight. Hector upbraids him sharply: and Helen, in a speech full of self-abasement, laments the unworthiness of her paramour. Hector speaks no word of reproach to her, though he gently declines her invitation to rest himself also a while from the battle. Paris promises to follow him at once to the field; and Hector moves on to his own wife’s apartments, to see her and his child once more before he goes back to the combat which he has a half-foreboding will end fatally for himself, whatever be the fortunes of Troy.
And now we are introduced to the second female character in the poem, standing in the strongest possible contrast with that of Helen, but of no less admirable conception. It is remarkable how entirely Homer succeeds in interesting us in his women, without having recourse to what might seem to us the very natural expedient of dwelling on their personal charms; especially when it is taken into account that, in his simple narrative, he has not the resources of the modern novelist, who can make even the plainest heroine attractive by painting her mental perfections, or setting before us the charms of her conversation. It has been said that he rather assumes than describes the beauty of Helen: in the case of Andromache, it has been remarked that he never once applies to her any epithet implying personal attractions, though all his translators, Lord Derby included, have been tempted to do so. It is as the wife and mother that Andromache charms us. We readily assume that she is comely, graceful—all that a woman should be; but it is simple grace of domestic character which forms the attraction of the Trojan princess.
Hector does not find her, as he expects, in the palace. She had heard how the fortunes of the day seemed turning against the Trojans; and she had hurried, “like one distraught,” to the tower of the citadel, to see with her own eyes how the fight was going. He meets her at the Scæan gates, with the nurse and the child, “whom Hector called Scamandrius, from the river, but the citizens Astyanax”—“defender of the city.” The father looks silently on his boy, and smiles; Andromache in tears clings to her husband, and makes a pathetic appeal to him not to be too prodigal of a life which is so dear to his wife and child. Her fate has been already that of many women of her day. Her father and seven tall brethren have been slain by the fierce Achilles, when ravaging the country round Troy he destroyed their native city of Cilician Thebes: her mother too is dead, and she is left alone. She adds the touching loving confession, which Pope’s version has made popular enough even to unclassical ears—
“But while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all in thee.”
Hector soothes her, but it is with a mournful foreboding of evil to come. He values too much his own honour and fair fame to shrink from the battle:—
“I should blush
To face the men and long-robed dames of Troy,
If like a coward I could shun the fight;
Nor could my soul the lessons of my youth
So far forget, whose boast it still has been
In the fore-front of battle to be found,
Charged with my father’s glory and mine own.
Yet in my inmost soul too well I know
The day must come when this our sacred Troy,
And Priam’s race, and Priam’s royal self,
Shall in one common ruin be o’erthrown.” (D.)
But that which wrings his heart most of all is the vision before his eyes of his beloved wife dragged into slavery. Pope’s version of the rest of the passage is so good of its kind, and has so naturalised the scene to our English conceptions, that no closer version will ever supersede it.
“Thus having spoke, th’ illustrious chief of Troy
Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy;
The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child,
The glitt’ring terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground.
Then kissed the child, and lifting high in air,
Thus to the Gods preferred a father’s prayer:
‘O thou! whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when triumphant from successful toils,
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say—This chief transcends his father’s fame:
While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.’
He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burthen to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hushed to repose, and with a smile surveyed.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with the smile a tender tear.
The softened chief with kind compassion viewed,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued.”