ANDROMACHE.
Andromachê sitting on the steps of the altar of Thetis.
Andromache.
Beauty of Asian land, O town of Thebes,
Whence, decked with gold of costly bride-array,
To Priam's royal hearth long since I came
Espoused to Hector for his true-wed wife,—
I, envied in time past, Andromachê, 5
But now above all others most unblest
Of women that have been or shall be ever;
Who saw mine husband by Achilles slain,
Hector; the child I bare unto my lord
Hurled from the towers' height, my Astyanax, 10
That day the Hellenes won the plain of Troy.
Myself a slave, accounted erst the child
Of a free house, none freer, came to Hellas,
Spear-guerdon chosen out for the island-prince,[1]
From Troy's spoil given to Neoptolemus. 15
Here on the marches 'twixt Pharsalia's town
And Phthia's plains I dwell, where that Sea-queen,
Thetis, with Peleus dwelt aloof from men,
- ↑ Neoptolemus was born in Skyros, an island in the Aegean sea.
