Andromache (0-40)

O city of Thebes,[*] glory of Asia, whence on a day I came to Priam’s princely home with many a rich and costly thing in my dower, affianced unto Hector to be the mother of his children,

I Andromache, envied name in days of yore, but now of all women that have been or yet shall be the most unfortunate[*]; for I have lived to see my husband Hector slain by Achilles, and the babe Astyanax, whom I bore my lord,

hurled from the towering battlements, when the Hellenes sacked our Trojan home; and I myself am come to Hellas as a slave, though I was esteemed a daughter of a race most free, given to Neoptolemus that island-prince,

and set apart for him as his special prize from the spoils of Troy. And here I dwell upon the boundaries of Phthia and Pharsalia’s town, where Thetis erst, the goddess of the sea, abode with Peleus apart from the world, avoiding the throng of men; wherefore the folk of Thessaly

call it the sacred place of Thetis, in honour of the goddess’s marriage. Here dwells the son of Achilles and suffers Peleus still to rule Pharsalia, not wishing to assume the sceptre while the old man lives. Within these halls have I born a boy

to the son of Achilles, my master.

Now aforetime for all my misery I ever had a hope to lead me on, that, if my child were safe, I might find some help and protection from my woes; but since my lord hath wedded that Spartan Hermione[*]

in scorn of his bondmaid’s charms, I am tormented by her most cruelly; for she saith that I by secret enchantment am making her barren and distasteful to her husband, and that I design to take her place in this house,

ousting her the rightful mistress by force; whereas I at first submitted against my will and now have resigned my place; be almighty Zeus my witness that[*] it was not of my own free will I became her rival!

But I cannot convince her, and she longs to kill me,

and her father Menelaus is an accomplice in this. E’en now is he within, arrived from Sparta for this very purpose, while I in terror am come to take up a position here in the shrine of Thetis adjoining the house, if haply it may save me from death;