So the old man groaned
and seizing his gray hair tore it out by the roots
but he could not shake the fixed resolve of Hector.
And his mother wailed now, standing beside Priam.
weeping freely, loosing her robes with one hand
and holding out her bare breast with the other,
her words pouring forth in a flight of grief and tears:
"Hector, my child! Look – have some respect for this!
Pity your mother too, if I ever gave you the breast
to soothe your troubles, remember it now, dear boy –
beat back that savage man from safe inside the walls!
Don’t go forth, a champion pitted against him –
merciless, brutal man. If he kills you now,
how can I ever mourn you on your deathbed."
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 22, lines 90-103. Priam literally tears his hair out but cannot shake the resolve of his son Hector to go outside the walls of Troy to face Achilles. Hector’s mother Hecuba weeps and pleads with her son not to pit himself against this merciless and brutal champion. If Achilles kills him, she says that she will not be able to mourn him on his deathbed. This foreshadows how Hector’s corpse will be disrespected by Achilles. The love of two parents for their child comes through strongly in this passage.