O Thebes, thou pride of Asia, from whose gate
I came resplendent with a plenteous dower,
To Priam’s regal house, the fruitful wife
Of Hector: his Andromache was erst
An envied name: but now am I more wretched
Than any woman, or already born,
Or to be born hereafter; for I saw
My husband Hector by Achilles slain,
And that unhappy son whom to my lord
I bore, Astyanax, from Troy’s high towers
Thrown headlong; when our foes had sacked the city,
Myself descended from a noble line
Of freeborn warriors, reached the Grecian coast,
On Neoptolemus that island prince
For the reward of his victorious arms
Bestowed: selected from the Phrygian spoils.
’Twixt Phthia and Pharsalia, in these fields,
I dwell, where Thetis from the haunts of men
Retreating, with her Peleus erst abode.
By Thessaly’s inhabitants, this spot
Is from th’ auspicious nuptials of that goddess
Called Thetidæum: here Achilles’ son
Residing, suffers Peleus still to rule
Pharsalia’s land, nor will assume the sceptre
While lives his aged grandsire. In these walls
A son, who to th’ embraces of my lord
Achilles’ offspring, owes his birth, I bore,
And though I had been wretched, a fond hope
Still cherished, that while yet the boy was safe
I some protection and relief might find
In my calamities; but since my lord
(Spurning my servile couch) that Spartan dame
Hermione espoused, with ruthless hate
By her am I pursued; for she pretends
That I, by drugs endued with magic power,
Administered in secret, make her barren
And odious to her lord, because I wish
To occupy this mansion in her stead,
And forcibly to drive her from his couch,
To which, at first I with reluctance came,
But now have left it: mighty Jove can witness
That I became the partner of his bed
Against my own consent. But she remains
Deaf to conviction, and attempts to slay me:
In this design her father Menelaus
Assists his daughter, he is now within,
And on such errand left the Spartan realm:
Fearing his rage, I near the palace take
My seat, in Thetis’ temple, that the goddess
From death may save me; for both Peleus’ self,
And the descendants of that monarch, hold
This structure reared in memory of his wedlock
With the fair Nereid, in religious awe.
But hence, in secret, trembling for his life,
My only child have I conveyed away,
Because his noble father is not present
To aid me, and avails not now to guard
His son, while absent in the Delphic land,
To expiate there the rage with which he sought
The Pythian tripod, and from Phœbus claimed
A reparation for his father’s death.
If haply he can deprecate the curses
Attendant on his past misdeeds, and make
The god propitious to his future days.