Great Hector of the beamy helm replied:⁠— “Nay, Helen, ask me not to sit; thy speech Is courteous, but persuades me not. My mind Is troubled for the Trojans, to whose aid I hasten, for they miss me even now. But thou exhort this man, and bid him haste To overtake me ere I leave the town. I go to my own mansion first, to meet My household⁠—my dear wife and little child; Nor know I whether I may come once more To them, or whether the great gods ordain That I must perish by the hands of Greeks.”

So spake the plumèd Hector, and withdrew, And reached his pleasant palace, but found not White-armed Andromache within, for she Was in the tower, beside her little son And well-robed nurse, and sorrowed, shedding tears. And Hector, seeing that his blameless wife Was not within, came forth again, and stood Upon the threshold questioning the maids.