Andromache

The persons of Homer's music came next to them.

I was Hector and held Andromache to my heart.

I kissed her farewell when I went forth to school and hurried home at night from the station impatient for her arms.

I was never Paris and had only awe of Helen.

I hold within triumphant arms today The loveliness of ages passed away.

Brunhildas, Isaults, Gudruns, and Guineveres, And hers for whom avenging Argive spears Smote Trojan heroes in that ancient fray, And fierce Achilles did great Hector slay, While sad Andromache wept widow's tears.

Nature is not so rich that she can waste The wonders of her working wantonly: Blanaid the Fair, and Rosalie the Chaste, And burning Sappho, Queen of Melody, Are born again, and all their charms embrace In one fair woman who was born for me.

End of poem.

More an assortment of legs, arms, chests, some with the armour still on, some stripped, hands in a pile.

Whose hands are they? Ears missing, eyes hanging out of sockets, and then Andromache comes in screaming, holding this bloody bundle.

My grandson, intact except for his head, smashed off a wall like an eggshell.

They're through the south gate, she says.

Armour that was worth a hundred oxen, for armour that was worth nine only.

End of Of Glaucus and Diomedes Hector and Andromache.

When Hector passed through the gates into the city, hundreds of Trojan women crowded round him, asking what had happened to their sons or husbands.

But he said nothing to them, except to bid them to pray that the gods would protect those whom they loved.

Hector asked the maids, Where is the lady Andromeche? Has she gone to see one of her sisters-in-law, or maybe with the other mothers of Troy, to the temple of Athena? Then an old woman, who was the housekeeper, said, Nay, she went to one of the towers of the wall, that she might see the battle, for she had heard that the Greeks were pressing our people very much.

She seemed like a madwoman, so much haste did she make, and the nurse went with her carrying the child.

Then Hector ran towards the gate, and Andromache saw him from where she stood on the wall, and made haste to meet him.

and the nurse came with her, carrying the child, Hector's only son, a beautiful boy with a head like a star, so bright with his golden hair.

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part one of the trojan women this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by expatriate in bangor the trojan women by euripides translated by edward p coleridge dramatis personae poseidon athena hecuba chorus of captive trojan women Talthybius, Cassandra, Andromache, Menelaus, and Helen, seen before Agamemnon's tent in the camp near Troy.

The Trojan Women Poseidon, lo! from the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, come, where choirs of nereids trip in the mazes of the graceful dance.

for since the day that phoebus and myself with measurement exact set towers of stone about this land of troy and ringed it round never from my heart hath passed away a kindly feeling for my phrygian town which now is smouldering and o'erthrown a prey to argive prowess for from his home beneath parnassus phocion epeius aided by the craft of pallas framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host and sent it within the battlements fraught with death whence in days to come men shall tell of the wooden horse with its hidden load of warriors groves forsaken stand and temples of the gods run down with blood and at the altar's very base before the god who watched his home lies priam dead while to achaean ships great store of gold and phrygian spoils are being conveyed and they who came against this town those sons of hellas only wait a favouring breeze to follow in their wake that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children vanquished by hera argive goddess and by athene who helped to ruin phrygia i am leaving ilium that famous town and the altars that i love for when drear desolation seizes on a town the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect scamander's banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids as they by lot receive their masters arcadia taketh some and some the folk of thessaly others are assigned to theseus sons the athenian chiefs and such of the trojan dames as are not portioned out are in these tents set apart for the leaders of the host and with them spartan helen daughter of tyndarus justly counted among the captives and wouldst thou see that queen of misery hecuba thou canst for there she lies before the gates weeping many a bitter tear for many a tribulation for at achilles tomb though she knows not this her daughter polyxena has died most piteously likewise is priam dead and her children too cassandra whom the king apollo left to be a virgin frenzied maid hath agamemnon in contempt of the gods ordinance and of piety forced to a dishonoured wedlock farewell o city prosperous once farewell ye ramparts of hewn stone had not pallas daughter of zeus decreed thy ruin thou wert standing firmly still ath may i address the mighty god whom heaven reveres and who to my own sire is very nigh in blood laying aside our former enmity poseidon thou mayst for o'er the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell great queen athene athene for thy forgiving mood my thanks somewhat have i to impart affecting both thyself and me o king poseidon bring'st thou fresh tidings from some god from zeus or from some lesser power athena from none of these but on behalf of troy whose soil we tread am i come to seek thy mighty aid to make it one with mine poseidon what hast thou laid thy former hate aside to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes athena first go back to the former point wilt thou make common cause with me in the scheme i purpose pose i surely but i would fain learn thy wishes whether thou art come to help achaeans or phrygians athena i wish to give my former foes the trojans joy and on the achaean host impose a return that they will rue poseidon why leap'st thou thus from mood to mood thy love and hate both go too far on whomsoever centred athena dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine i love poseidon surely in the hour that aias tore cassandra thence athena yea and the achaeans did nought said nought to him poseidon and yet twas by thy mighty aid they sacked athene for which cause i would join with thee to work their bane poseidon my powers are ready at thy will what is thy intent athene a returning fraught with woe will i impose on them poseidon while yet they stay on shore or as they cross the briny deep athene when they have set sail from ilium for their homes on them will zeus also send his rain and fearful hail and inky tempest from the sky yea and he promises to grant me his leaven bolts to hurl on the achaeans and fire their ships and do thou for thy part make the gean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools and fill euboea's hollow bay with corpses that achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities poseidon so shall it be for the boon thou cravest needs but few words i will vex the broad gean sea and the beach of myconos and the reefs round delos skyrus and lemnos too and the cliffs of capharios shall be strewn with many a corpse mount thou to olympus and taking from thy father's hand his lightning bolts keep careful watch against the hour when argos hosts lest slip its cables a fool is he who sacks the towns of men with shrines and tombs the dead man's hallowed home for at the last he makes a desert round himself and dies hec lift thy head unhappy lady from the ground thy neck upraise this is troy no more no longer am i queen in ilium though fortune change endure thy lot sail with the stream and follow fortune's tack steer not thy bark of life against the tide since chance must guide thy course ah me ah me what else but tears is now my hapless lot whose country children husband all are lost ah the high-blown pride of ancestors how cabined now how brought to nothing after all what woe must i suppress or what declare what plaintive dirge shall i awake ah woe is me the anguish i suffer lying here stretched upon this pallet hard oh my head my temples my side ah could i but turn over and lie now on this now on that to rest my back and spine while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends for e'en this is music to the wretched to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow ye swift proud ships rowed to sacred ilium o'er the deep dark sea past the fair havens of hellas to the flute's ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes even to the bays of troyland alack the day wherein ye tied your hawser's twisted handiwork from egypt in quest of that hateful wife of menelaus who brought disgrace on castor and on eurotas foul reproach murderous she of priam sire of fifty children the cause why i the hapless hecuba have wrecked my life upon this troublous strand oh that i should sit here o'er against the tent of agamemnon forth from my home to slavery They hail my aged frame, while from my head in piteous wise the hair is shorn for grief.

longtime teacher, been a guest of ours in the past, and we're very appreciative of his coming back.

I want to get to Hector and Andromache in just a second, but there's a line that Helen says, Dr. Smith, Zeus planted a killing doom in us both, we will live forever in song.

I mentioned that in the last segment, but I didn't mention the part, Zeus planted a doom in us.

Again, we're not in control of our own lives here, right? In Homer's view, it's up to Zeus.

Well, I said it's absolutely, I mean, it's indispensable.

Like you can't, you need it to really to live well, I think, in Homer's presentation.

But that line from Andromache, which is a real mic drop in book six, you know, you're going to destroy yourself is what she tells her husband.

And it's difficult.