Hector’s Serenade

                           Why this weeping upon the
ramparts? Might your tears be an oblation to
Apollo? Might he take them to quench the
rage of Hera, watching us, as she does, from
a thousand Achaean fires?

                            Women are fated for grief
as long as their men are fated for war. But
fate is not today, sweetest Andromache,
though the skies weep melancholy violet-
though the dying light bleeds crimson ribbons
upon the sea beyond the desolate plain.

                             Come close, that I might see
our Scamandrius, who shines bright in my eyes
as Aphrodite at dawn. Come close to me, dear
one, so these hands, accustomed to war, may
stir your tresses as the breath of Zephyrus
flowing through flaxen fields of wheat.

                             Come now, my Andromache,
even Zeus allows solace for the doomed.

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