his! How changed he was from that Hector who returns after donning the spoils of Achilles or hurling on Danaan ships the Phrygian fires – with ragged beard, with hair matted with blood, and bearing those many wounds he received around his native walls. I dreamed I wept myself, hailing him first, and uttering words of grief: ‘O light of the Dardan land, surest hope of the Trojans, what long delay has held you?

From what shores, Hector, the long looked for, do you come? Oh, how gladly after the many deaths of your kin, after woes untold of citizens and city, our weary eyes behold you! What shameful cause has marred that unclouded face? Why do I see these wounds?’ He answers not, nor heeds my idle questioning, but drawing heavy sighs from his bosom’s depths, ‘Ah, flee, goddess-born,’ he cries,