I advance from the harbour, leaving shore and fleet, just when, as it happened, Andromache, in a grove outside the city, by the waters of a mimic Simois, was offering her yearly feast and gifts of mourning to the dust, and calling the ghost to Hector’s tomb – the empty mound of green turf that she had hallowed with twin altars, there to shed her tears.

When she caught sight of me coming, and saw to her amazement the arms of Troy around, awed by these great marvels she stiffened even as she gazed, and the warmth forsook her limbs. She swoons, and at last after a long time speaks: ‘Are you real form, a real messenger, coming to me, goddess-born? Are you alive? Or if the light of life has left you, where is Hector?’ She spoke, and shedding a flood of tears filled all the place with her cries.