Hector's Prayer

"O Jupiter and all ye deities,

Vouchsafe that this, my son, may yet become

Among the Trojans eminent like me,

And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say,

'This man was greater than his father was!'

When they behold him from the battlefield

Bring back the bloody spoil of the slain foe,—

That so his mother may be glad at heart."

— from the Iliad, Bryant's translation