Andromache
an-drom'a-ke, in Greek legend, the wife of Hector of Troy. She is one of the finest female characters in Greek literature. She was a daughter of the king of Thebes, and suffered much at the hands of Achilles. During her childhood he slew her father and seven brothers. During the siege of Troy he slew Hector. After the siege of Troy she passed into the possession of Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, who, however, bestowed her in marriage on Helenus, a brother of her dead husband. As his wife she appears in Virgil's Aeneid. Andromache's grief for her dead husband, Hector, is the theme of one of the finest passages in Homer's Iliad. The following is from the translation by Alexander Pope:
First to the corse the weeping consort flew;
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord!" she cries,
"Snatch'd in the bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms forever gone!
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone! . . .
Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why receiv'd not I thy last command?
Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix'd in my heart and oft repeated there!"
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord!" she cries,
"Snatch'd in the bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms forever gone!
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone! . . .
Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why receiv'd not I thy last command?
Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix'd in my heart and oft repeated there!"
Volume I · Aiton’s Encyclopedia