XLII. "'Alas! what lot is thine? What worthy fate
Hath caught thee, fallen from a spouse so high?
Hector's Andromache, art thou the mate
Of Pyrrhus?' Then with lowly downcast eye
She dropped her voice, and softly made reply.
'Ah! happy maid of Priam, doomed instead
At Troy upon a foeman's tomb to die!
Not drawn by lot for servitude, nor led		370
A captive thrall, like me, to grace a conqueror's bed.

XLIII. "'I, torn from burning Troy o'er many a wave,
Endured the lust of Pyrrhus and his pride,
And knew a mother's travail as his slave.
Fired with [Hermione,] a Spartan bride,
Me, joined in bed and bondage, he allied
To Helenus. But mad with love's despair,
And stung with Furies for his spouse denied,
At length [Orestes] caught the wretch unware,		379
E'en by his father's shrine, and smote him then and there.
XLIV. "'The tyrant dead, a portion of his reign
Devolves on Helenus, who Chaonia calls
From Trojan Chaon the Chaonian plain,
And on these heights rebuilds the Trojan walls.
But thou—what chance, or god, or stormy squalls
Have driven thee here unweeting?—and the boy
Ascanius—lives he, or what hap befalls
His parents' darling, and their only joy?		388
Breathes he the vital air, whom unto thee now Troy—
XLV. "'Still grieves he for his mother? Doth the name
Of sire or uncle make his young heart glow
For deeds of valour and ancestral fame?'
Weeping she spake, with unavailing woe,
And poured her sorrow to the winds, when lo,
In sight comes Helenus, with fair array,
And hails his friends, and hastening to bestow
Glad welcome, toward his palace leads the way;		397
But tears and broken words his mingled thoughts betray.

XLVI. "I see another but a tinier Troy,
A seeming Pergama recalls the great.
A dried-up [Xanthus] I salute with joy,
And clasp the portals of a [Scæan gate.]
Nor less kind welcome doth the rest await.
The monarch, mindful of his sire of old,
Receives the Teucrians in his courts of state.
They in the hall, the viands piled on gold,		406
Pledging the God of wine, their brimming cups uphold.

XLVII. "One day and now another passed; the gale
Sings in the shrouds, and calls us to depart,
When thus the prophet Helenus I hail,
'Troy-born interpreter of Heaven! whose art
The signs of Phoebus' pleasure can impart;
Thou know'st the tripod and the [Clarian] bay,
The stars, the voices of the birds, that dart
On wings with omens laden, speak and say,—		415
Since fate and all the gods foretell a prosperous way.
XLVIII. "'And point to far Italia,—One alone,
Celæno, sings of famine foul and dread,
A nameless prodigy, a plague unknown,—
What perils first to shun? what path to tread,
To win deliverance from such toils?' This said,
I ceased, and Helenus with slaughtered kine
Implores the god, and from his sacred head
Unbinds the wreath, and leads me to the shrine,		424
Awed by Apollo's power, and chants the doom divine: