"Desist, my friends, and permit me alone, grieved as I am, going out of the city, to approach the ships of the Greeks. I will supplicate this reckless, violent man, if perchance he may respect my time of life, and have compassion on my old age; for such is his father Peleus to him, he who begat and nurtured him a destruction to the Trojans; but particularly to me above all has he caused sorrows. For so many blooming youths has he slain to me, for all of whom I do not lament so much, although grieved, as for this one, Hector, keen grief for whom will bear me down even into Hades.[715] Would that he had died in my hands; for thus we should have been satisfied, weeping and lamenting, both his unhappy mother who bore him, and I myself." Thus he spoke, weeping, but the citizens also groaned. But among the Trojan dames, Hecuba began her continued lamentation:
[Footnote 715: "Then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."—Genes, xlii. 38.]