Collected Works

I have hands that scepters can grace. And do not despise me because I used to lie with you on the beech-leaves; I am more suited for a purple couch. Finally, my love is safe. No wars are being prepared for you, nor does the sea bring up vengeful fleets. The daughter of Tyndareus Tyndaris Helen of Troy is demanded back by hostile arms; she comes into your marriage-bed as a proud dowry. If she must be returned to the Danaans, ask your brother Hector, or Polydamas with Deiphobus. Consult what the serious Antenor suggests, or what Priam himself advises, for whom long life has been a teacher.

It is a shameful beginning to prefer a stolen woman to one’s fatherland. Your cause is shameful; the husband moves weapons justly. And do not promise yourself a faithful Spartan woman, if you desire one, who would be turned to your embraces so quickly. As the younger son of Atreus Atrides Menelaus cries out about the broken treaties of his bed and grieves, hurt by an external love, you too will cry out. Pudicity, once harmed, is not reparable by any art; it perishes once and for all. She burns with love for you; she loved Menelaus just so. Now he lies in a widowed bed, trusting.

Happy is Andromache, well-married to a certain husband. I should have been taken as a wife following the example of your brother. You are lighter than leaves when, devoid of weight and sap, they fly, dried out by shifting winds. And there is less weight in you than in the top of an ear of wheat, which, light and parched, stiffens in the constant suns. This, your sister Cassandra, once sang (for I recall it), prophesying to me thus with her hair streaming loose: "What are you doing, Oenone? Why are you sowing seeds in the sand? You are plowing shores with oxen that will not profit you. A Greek heifer comes who will destroy you, your fatherland, and your home. Io, forbid it! The Greek heifer comes. While you can, drown the obscene ship in the sea. Alas, how much Phrygian blood that ship carries!"

She had spoken; the servants snatched her away in her frenzy, but my yellow hair stood on end. Ah, prophetess, you were too true for wretched me. Behold, that heifer possesses my glades. Even if she is distinguished in face, she is certainly an adulteress; she deserted her companions, captivated by a guest god. Theseus—if I am not mistaken in the name—took her from her fatherland, I know not what Theseus, by his art.