Andromache

Also known as: AND. · Family: Troy · Role: captive wife of Hector · First appears: Euripides, The Trojan Captives — Scene 2

In Scene 2 of Euripides’ The Trojan Captives, Andromache is identified as Hector’s captive wife and selected from the captives for Neoptolemus, Achilles’s son: “But, alas! what fortune Attends the warlike Hector’s captive wife, How fares it with the lost Andromache?” Her Greek masters forcibly take her away, and she advances in a foreign chariot while her son Astyanax follows, eager for his mother. In slavery, Neoptolemus resolves to take her to his bed, while Hecuba is addressed as a mother-like elder. When the Greeks decree Astyanax’s death, Talthybius brings Andromache the news that he will be thrown from Ilion’s towers; she condemns the Greeks and Helen for this cruelty. Neoptolemus then departs for Phthia with Andromache, who entrusts Astyanax’s corpse to Hecuba for burial.

In Andromache, Andromache has been bestowed upon Neoptolemus as a captive reward for his victorious arms and has borne him a son, Molossus, though he later marries Hermione. Fearing Hermione’s rage, Andromache seeks refuge in Thetis’ temple: “Fearing his rage, I near the palace take My seat, in Thetis’ temple, that the goddess From death may save me”. Hermione plans to drive her from the asylum, while Menelaus secretly moves Molossus and threatens his death to lure Andromache away. She leaves the altar and surrenders herself to save her son, but Menelaus sentences them both to death. Peleus intervenes, orders her chains removed, and rescues her and Molossus from Menelaus; Hermione later admits that she had tried to kill Andromache and her son.

In Scene 9, Thetis assigns Andromache in marriage to Helenus, and Andromache is sent to dwell with him in Molossia.