Cephise recommends that Andromache accept Hermione's ironic advice, and, in fact, Pyrrhus appears with Phoenix, ostensibly on his way to see Hermione. He lingers long enough, however, for Andromache to overcome her reluctance, appeal to him for mercy, and apologize for her former pride. Except for him, she says ambiguously, Andromache would never have embraced the knees of a master. When he rejects her, saying he knows she detests him--would detest even her own son if she owed his life to Pyrrhus--she says she is going to kill herself. Pyrrhus knows perfectly well that he is the author of all her suffering: the death of her father, her family, her husband, and the destruction of her city. Still, she lived for her son and was glad that, if he must be a slave, he had found a noble master. This hope gone, she wants only to rejoin her husband in his tomb.
At these words, Pyrrhus sends Phoenix away. He thought himself strong enough to resist her pleas, he tells Andromache, but he is not. One word from her and her son is safe, but there is only one way in which she can save him. He will risk the anger of all Greece, affront Hermione, and marry Andromache instead, but it must be marriage; he can wait no longer. He will give her a brief space for reflection and then bring her to the temple where her son will also be taken. There he will kill Astyanax or crown her queen; the choice is hers.
