to their dark ship to row me o'er the deep to sacred Salamis or to the hill[1] on the Isthmus, that o'erlooks two seas, the key to the gates of Pelops. Oh may the blazing thunderbolt, hurled in might from its holy home, smite the barque of Menelaus full amidships as it is crossing the Ægean[2] main, since he is carrying me away in bitter sorrow from the shores of Ilium to be a slave in Hellas, while the daughter of Zeus still keeps her golden mirrors, delight of maidens' hearts. Never may he reach his home in Laconia or his father's hearth and home, nor come to the town of Pitane[3] or the temple of the goddess[4] with the gates of bronze, having taken as his captive her whose marriage brought disgrace on Hellas through its length and breadth and woful anguish on the streams of Simois! Ah me! ah me! new troubles on my country fall, to take the place of those that still are fresh! Behold, ye hapless wives of Troy, the corpse of Astyanax! whom the Danai have cruelly slain by hurling him from the battlements.
of Astyanax on Hector's shield.
Tal. Hecuba, one ship alone delays its plashing oars, and it is soon to sail to the shores of Phthia freighted with the remnant of the spoils of Achilles' son; for Neoptolemus is already out at sea, having heard that new calamities have befallen Peleus, for Acastus, son of Pelias, hath banished him the realm. Wherefore he is gone, too quick to indulge in any delay, and with him goes Andromache, who drew many a tear from me what time she started hence, wailing her country and crying her farewell to Hector's tomb. And she
- ↑ i.e. Acrocorinthus, which would overlook the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs; the Isthmus may fairly be called the key to the Peloponnesus.
- ↑ Hartung, whose reading is here followed, has Αἴγαιον δίπάλτον ἱερὸν, κ.τ.λ.
- ↑ Part of Sparta was so called.
- ↑ Athena of "the Brazen House," a temple on the acropolis.
