Hector, what help are you to him, now you are dead? –
what help is he to you? Think, even if he escapes
the wrenching horrors of war against the Argives,
pain and labor will plague him all his days to come.
Strangers will mark his lands off, stealing his estates.
The day that orphans a youngster cuts him off from friends.
And he hangs his head low, humiliated in every way…
his cheeks stained with tears, and pressed by hunger
the boy goes up to his father’s old companions,
tugging at one man’s cloak. another’s tunic.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 22, lines 571-580. When Andromache learns that her husband Hector is dead, she is grief stricken, but her thoughts turn straight away to the fate of her son. Without his renowned father being there to support him, Astyanax will have to rely on others for his survival, she laments. Even if her son escapes the horrors of this awful war with the Achaeans, he will be plagued by a life of pain and labor, she says. Since Astyanax will actually die shortly after the fall of Troy, this makes Andromache’s comments sadly ironic. Andromache’s deep love for her family shine through here.