The Iliad 6.369–375

and came speedily to his well-built house. But he found not white-armed Andromache in his halls; she with her child and a fair-robed handmaiden had taken her stand upon the wall, weeping and wailing. So Hector when he found not his peerless wife within, went and stood upon the threshold, and spake amid the serving-women: Come now, ye serving-women, tell me true; whither went white-armed Andromache from the hall? Is she gone to the house of any of my sisters or my brothers' fair-robed wives, or to the temple of Athene, where the otherfair-tressed women of Troy are seeking to propitiate he dread goddess? Then a busy house-dame spake to him, saying: Hector, seeing thou straitly biddest us tell thee true, neither is she gone to any of thy sisters or thy brothers' fair-robed wives, nor yet to the temple of Athene, where the otherfair-tressed Trojan women are seeking to propitiate the dread goddess; but she went to the great wall of Ilios, for that she heard the Trojans were sorely pressed, and great victory rested with the Achaeans. So is she gone in haste to the wall, like one beside herself; and with her the nurse beareth the child.