An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco Read Free Book Online Page B

took it and set off with the other women to the temple of Athena.
    In truth, I wasn’t there. But I know these things because they were talked about, always, among us, the servant women, and all the palace attendants.
And they told me that Hector, when he left his mother, went to look for Paris, to bring him back to the battle. He found him in his room, polishing his beautiful armor, the shield, the breastplate, the curved bow. Helen, too, was in the room. She sat among her women. They were all working with marvelous skill. Hector entered—stillwith the spear in his hand, the bronze tip gleaming—and as soon as he saw Paris he cried out, “You shameless man, what are you doing here, giving in to bitterness while men are fighting beneath the high walls of Troy? It’s you who are the cause of this war. Come on, come and fight, or you’ll soon see your city in flames.”
    Paris … “You are not wrong, Hector, to reproach me,” he said. “But try to understand. I am here not to nurse resentment against the Trojans but to feel my sorrow. Helen, too, is telling me gently that I must return to the battle, and perhaps it’s the best thing I can do. Wait for me, for the time it takes to put on my armor, or go on ahead and I will join you.”
    Hector didn’t even answer. In the silence all the women heard the sweet voice of Helen. “Hector,” she said, “how I wish that on the day my mother brought me into the world a stormy wind had carried me far away, to some mountain peak or into the waves of the sea, before all this happened, or that fate had, at least, kept for me a man who was able to feel shame and the scorn of others. But Paris doesn’t have a strong nature, and never will. Come here, Hector, and sit beside me. Your heart is oppressed by troubles and it’s my fault, the fault of me and Paris and our folly. Rest beside me. You know, sorrow is our fate: but for that reason our lives will be sung forever, by all the men who come after.”
    Hector didn’t move. “Don’t ask me to stay, Helen,” he said. “Even if you do it for my sake, don’t ask. Let me go home, rather, because I want to see my wife and my son: my family. The Trojans fighting out there are waiting for me, but still I want to go to my wife and son, see them, because I truly don’t know if I will ever return here again, alive, before the Achaeans kill me.”
    Thus he spoke, and he went away. He came to his housebut he didn’t find us. He asked the servants where we were and they told him that Andromache had gone to the walls of Ilium. She had heard that the Trojans were giving way before the power of the Achaeans and she had rushed to the walls, and the nurse with her, carrying little Astyanax in her arms. And now they were out there, rushing like madwomen toward the walls.
    Hector didn’t say a word. He turned and headed swiftly toward the Scaean gates, crossing the city again. He was about to leave and return to the battle when Andromache saw him and ran to stop him, and I behind her, with the small, tender child in my arms, the beloved son of Hector, bright as a star. Hector saw us, and he stopped. And smiled.
This I saw with my own eyes. I was there.
Hector smiled. And Andromache went up to him and took his hand. She wept and said, “Unhappy Hector, your strength will be your ruin. Don’t you feel pity for your son, who is still a child, and for me, your unlucky wife? Do you want to go back there, where the Achaeans all together will attack you and kill you?” She wept. And then she said, “Hector, if I lose you, it will be better to die than to live, because there will be no comfort, for me, only sorrow. I have no father, no mother, I have no one anymore. Achilles killed my father when he destroyed Thebes with its tall gates. I had seven brothers and Achilles killed them all, on the same day, while the slow oxen and the white sheep grazed. Achilles carried off my mother, and we paid a ransom to get her back, and she returned to our