294Here an incredible report reaches our ears, that Helenus, son of Priam, is reigning over Greek cities, having won the wife and sceptre of Pyrrhus, Aeacus' descendant, and that Andromache has passed once more to a husband of her own people. 298I was astounded, and my heart burned with a wondrous longing to address the man and learn of such great events. 300I go forward from the harbour, leaving the fleet and the shore, just when, as it happened, in a grove before the city, by the waters of a counterfeit Simois, Andromache was offering solemn feasts and mournful gifts to the ashes, and calling the Shades to Hector's tomb, an empty one of green turf that she had consecrated with twin altars, a cause for tears.
306When she saw me coming and, out of her mind, saw Trojan arms around me, terrified by the great marvel, she stiffened as she gazed, and the warmth left her bones; 309she faints, and at last, after a long time, she barely speaks: 'Is your face real, are you a real messenger coming to me, goddess-born? 311Are you alive, or, if the kindly light has left you, where is Hector?' 312She spoke, and poured out tears and filled the whole place with her cries. 313Scarcely can I put in a few words to her frenzy, and, deeply shaken, I falter in broken speech: 'I am alive indeed, and I drag out my life through every extremity; 316do not doubt, for what you see is real.
317Ah, what fortune receives you, cast down from so great a husband, or what fate worthy enough has come again to Hector's Andromache? 319Do you keep your marriage to Pyrrhus?'