Of Pyrrhus come of Æacus, and ruleth Greekish town,
And that Andromache hath wed one of her folk once more.
All mazed am I; for wondrous love my heart was kindling sore
To give some word unto the man, of such great things to learn:
So from the haven forth I fare, from ships and shore I turn.300
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 messenger310
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 bore330
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?'
Such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain
Great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh
Lord Helenus the Priam-born midst mighty company,
And knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door,
Though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour.
So on; a little Troy I see feigned from great Troy of fame,
A Pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the Xanthus name,350
On threshold of a Scæan gate I stoop to lay a kiss.
Soon, too, all Teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss,
And them the King fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad,
And they amidmost of the hall the bowls of Bacchus poured,
The meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand.
So passed a day and other day, until the gales command
The sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the South:
Therewith I speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth:
'O Troy-born, O Gods' messenger, who knowest Phœbus' will,
The tripods and the Clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil,360
And tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing,
Come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing
All shrines have said, and all the Gods have bid me follow on
To Italy, till outland shores, far off, remote were won:
Alone Celæno, Harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth,
Unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath,
And ugly hunger. How may I by early perils fare?
Or doing what may I have might such toil to overbear?'
So Helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain,
Prays peace of Gods, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again,370
And then with hand he leadeth me, O Phœbus, to thy door,
My fluttering soul with all thy might of godhead shadowed o'er.
There forth at last from God-loved mouth the seer this word did send:
'O Goddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend
By mightiest bidding, such the lot the King of Gods hath found
All fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round.
Few things from many will I tell that thou the outland sea
May'st sail the safer, and at last make land in Italy;
The other things the Parcæ still ban Helenus to wot,
Saturnian Juno's will it is that more he utter not.380
First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh,
Thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby,
Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land;
And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand.
On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile,
And thou must see the nether meres, Ææan Circe's isle,
Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down.
I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown.
When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh,
And 'neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie,390
That e'en now farrowed thirty head of young,