Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

MARRIAGE AND THE LIFE OF WOMEN

Hector guarded Ilios. ‘Then Hector smiled, as he glanced at his boy in silence, but Andromache came close to his side weeping, and clasped his hand and spake to him, saying: ‘Ah, my husband, this prowess of thine will be thy doom, neither hast thou any pity for thine infant child nor for hapless me that shall soon be thy widow ; for soon will the Achaeans all set upon thee and slay thee. But for me it were better to go down to the grave if I lose thee, for nevermore shall any comfort be mine, when thou hast met thy fate, but only woes. Neither father have I nor queenly mother. My father verily goodly Achilles slew, for utterly laid he waste the well-peopled city of the Cilicians, even ‘Thebe of lofty gates. He slew Eétion, yet he despoiled him not, for his soul had awe of that ; but he burnt him in his armour, richly dight, and heaped over him a barrow ; and all about were elm-trees planted by nymphs of the mountain, daughters of Zeus that beareth the aegis. And the seven brothers that were mine in our halls, all these on the selfsame day entered into the house of Hades, for all were slain of swift-footed, goodly Achilles, amid their kine of shambling gait and their white-fleeced sheep. And my mother, that was queen beneath wooded Placus, her brought he hither with the rest of the spoil, but thereafter set her free, when he had taken ransom past counting; and in her father’s halls Artemis the archer slew her. Nay, Hector, thou art to me father and queenly mother, thou art brother and thou art my stalwart husband. Come, now, have pity and remain here on the wall, lest thou make thy child an orphan and thy wife a widow. And for thy host, stay it by the wild fig-tree, where the city may best be scaled, and the wall is open to assault. For thrice at this point came the most valiant in company with the twain Aiantes and glorious Idomeneus and the sons of Atreus and the valiant son of Tydeus, and made essay to enter; whether it be that one well skilled in soothsaying told them,