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Admeto was received with respect, and although the partisans of the "rival queens" were noisy in their applause, no actual disturbance took place until Admeto was followed by Buononcini's Astyanax on May 6. On the first night of the new opera each side did its best to drown the opposite party's favourite with a chorus of catcalls. Five days later George I died suddenly at Osnabruck.
His daughter wedded Hector brazen-helmed, And met him then; and with her came a maid, Who bore in arms a playful-hearted babe An infant still, akin to some fair star, Only and well-loved child of Hector's house, Whom he had named Scamandrios, but the rest Astyanax, because his sire alone Upheld the weal of Ilion the holy.
When Hector bids farewell to Andromache, the young Astyanax, startled by the nodding plumes on the helmet, does not know his father; he flings himself weeping upon his nurse's bosom and wins from his mother a smile mingled with tears. What must be done to stay this terror? Just what Hector did; put the helmet on the ground and caress the child.
'By Mercury! cried a pert little culinary disciple, scarce in his novitiate; 'whoever saw such antique sweetmeat shapes as these? It is impossible to do credit to one's art with such rude materials. Why, Sallust's commonest sweetmeat shape represents the whole siege of Troy; Hector and Paris, and Helen... with little Astyanax and the Wooden Horse into the bargain!
Achilles, indeed, was the son of a goddess, even silver-footed Thetis; while Hector's mother, Hecuba, was a mortal woman. Well knowing the dangers to which he was exposed, and how soon he might fall in battle, Hector now bethought him of his lovely wife, Andromache, and his little boy Astyanax.
But now that his father is no more, he shall suffer untold griefs, even he whom the Trojans called 'Astyanax, king of the city, because thou, O my beloved lord! wert the sole defense and glory of their lofty walls." Thus wailed the fair Andromache; and the women moaned around her. By Walter C. Perry
He told her that Astyanax, the son of Hector of Troy, established the kingdom of Messina in Sicily. From him were derived two branches, which gave origin to two families of renown. From one sprang the royal race of Pepin and Charlemagne, and from the other, that of Reggio, in Italy. "From that of Reggio am I derived," he continued.
The smiling countess made no opposition, and I proceeded to carry out my design, while the ladies laughed that magic laugh which not painter can portray. The divine Homer is the only poet who has succeeded in delineating it in those lines in which he describes Andromache with the young Astyanax in her arms, when Hector is leaving her to return to the battle.
With her was the nurse who carried the little child that the folk of the city named Astyanax, calling him, 'King of the City' because his father was their city's protector. Hector stretched out his arms to the little boy whom the nurse carried. But the child shrank away from him, because he was frightened of the great helmet on his father's head with its horse-hair crest.
When he had played till he was tired and went to sleep, he would lie in a bed, in the arms of his nurse, on a soft couch, knowing neither want nor care, whereas now that he has lost his father his lot will be full of hardship he, whom the Trojans name Astyanax, because you, O Hector, were the only defence of their gates and battlements.
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