The Hero 31
the war. He meets his wife Andromache, and there in the arms of a
servant is Astyanax, his son, the boy the Trojans call “lord of the
city.” Astyanax is “in the fi rst fl ush of life, only a baby... the dar-
ling of [Hector’s] eyes and radiant as a star” (VI, 473–475). Hector
and his wife come together and talk in a humane, understanding
way. They share a remarkable intimacy. Andromache tells Hector
how frightened she is for him. She has lost her father and her mo-
ther and also her seven bro th ers, all of whom were killed in a single
day by Achilles, who now threatens to rob her of her husband as
well. You are my father and my mo ther now, she tells Hector, and
you are my brother, too. You are all of my family.
Hector doesn’t resort to bragging or lordly indiff erence in re-
sponse, as Achilles might do in similar circumstances. He says that
all this weighs on him as well. He too is distressed about what will
become of his family. But he is the leading warrior in the city, the
best of the Trojans, and he has no choice but to do all he can to de-
fend his people. He says he believes that there will come a day
when Troy will fall and his father Priam and his mo ther Hecuba will
die, but still he will fi ght on as hard as he can. The thought of the
fall of the city gives Hector great pain, he says, but nothing like the
pain that comes when he contemplates Andromache being captured
by the Greeks, dragged from the city, sold into slavery, and made
to serve another woman, hauling water and washing clothes in some
faraway place.
Hector reaches out to the nurse to take Astyanax, but the boy
draws back and begins to cry. He is terrifi ed of his father dressed
in his dazzling fi lth- splattered armor and wearing the massive helm
with its horse hair crest.
And his loving father laughed,
his mo ther laughed as well, and glorious Hector,
quickly lifting the helmet from his head,