But as it happed Andromache was keeping yearly day, Pouring sad gifts unto the dead, amidst a grove that lay Outside the town, by wave that feigned the Simoïs that had been, Blessing the dead by Hector's mound empty and grassy green, Which she with altars twain thereby had hallowed for her tears. But when she saw me drawing nigh with armour that Troy bears About me, senseless, throughly feared with marvels grown so great, She stiffens midst her gaze; her bones are reft of life-blood's heat, She totters, scarce, a long while o'er, this word comes forth from her: 'Is the show true, O Goddess-born? com'st thou a messenger 310 Alive indeed? or if from thee the holy light is fled, Where then is Hector?' Flowed the tears e'en as the word she said, And with her wailing rang the place: sore moved I scarce may speak This word to her, grown wild with grief, in broken voice and weak: 'I live indeed, I drag my life through outer ways of ill; Doubt not, thou seest the very sooth. Alas! what hap hath caught thee up from such a man downcast? Hath any fortune worthy thee come back again at last? Doth Hector's own Andromache yet serve in Pyrrhus' bed?' She cast her countenance adown, and in a low voice said: 320 'O thou alone of Trojan maids that won a little joy, Bidden to die on foeman's tomb before the walls of Troy! Who died, and never had to bear the sifting lot's award, Whose slavish body never touched the bed of victor lord! We from our burning fatherland carried o'er many a sea, Of Achillæan offspring's pride the yoke-fellow must be, Must bear the childbed of a slave: thereafter he, being led To Leda's child Hermione and that Laconian bed, To Helenus his very thrall me very thrall gave o'er: But there Orestes, set on fire by all the love he bore 330 His ravished wife, and mad with hate, comes on him unaware Before his fathers' altar-stead and slays him then and there. By death of Neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came To Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian fields by name, And all the land Chaonia, from Chaon of Troy-town; And Pergamus and Ilian burg on ridgy steep set down. What winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er? Or what of Gods hath borne thee on unwitting to our shore? What of the boy Ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet? Whom unto thee when Troy yet was---- 340 The boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her? Do him Æneas, Hector gone, father and uncle, stir, To valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?'