“Refrain, my friends, though kind be your intent. Let me go forth alone, and at the fleet Of Greece will I entreat this man of blood And violence. He may perchance be moved With reverence for my age, and pity me In my gray hairs; for such a one as I Is Peleus, his own father, by whose care This Greek was reared to be a scourge to Troy, And, more than all, a cause of grief to me, So many sons of mine in life’s fresh prime Have fallen by his hand. I mourn for them, But not with such keen anguish as I mourn For Hector. Sorrow for his death will bring My soul to Hades. Would that he had died Here in my arms! This solace had been ours⁠— His most unhappy mother and myself Had stooped to shed these tears upon his bier.”

He spake, and wept, and all the citizens Wept with him. Hecuba among the dames Took up the lamentation, and began:⁠—