The Trojan Women

 Euripides - 410 BC

 Characters:-

Poseidon, Athena, Hecuba, Chorus of Captive Trojan Women, Talthybius, Cassandra, Andromache, Menelaus, Helen

Before Agamemnon's Tent in the Camp near Troy. HECUBA asleep. Enter POSEIDON.

POSEIDON
Lo! from the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, come, where
choirs of Nereids trip in the mazes of the graceful dance; for since
the day that Phoebus and myself with measurement exact set towers of
stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart
hath passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is
smouldering and o'erthrown, a prey to Argive prowess. For, from his
home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas,
framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, and sent it
within the battlements, fraught with death; whence in days to come men
shall tell of "the wooden horse," with its hidden load of warriors.
Groves forsaken stand and temples of the gods run down with blood, and
at the altar's very base, before the god who watched his home, lies
Priam dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold and Phrygian
spoils are being conveyed, and they who came against this town,
those sons Of Hellas, only wait a favouring breeze to follow in
their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their
wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena,
who helped to ruin Phrygia, I am leaving Ilium, that famous town,
and the altars that I love; for when drear desolation seizes on a
town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect.
Scamander's banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive
maids, as they by lot receive their masters. Arcadia taketh some,
and some the folk of Thessaly; others are assigned to Theseus' sons,
the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan dames as are not portioned
out, are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the host; and
with them Spartan Helen, daughter of Tyndarus, justly counted among
the captives. And wouldst thou see that queen of misery, Hecuba,
thou canst; for there she lies before the gates, weeping many a bitter
tear for many a tribulation; for at Achilles' tomb-though she knows
not this-her daughter Polyxena has died most piteously; likewise is
Priam dead, and her children too; Cassandra, whom the king Apollo left
to be a virgin, frenzied maid, hath Agamemnon, in contempt of the
god's ordinance and of piety, forced to a dishonoured wedlock.
Farewell, O city prosperous once! farewell, ye ramparts of hewn stone!
had not Pallas, daughter of Zeus, decreed thy ruin, thou wert standing
firmly still.

Enter ATHENA.

ATHENA
May I address the mighty god whom Heaven reveres and who to my own
sire is very nigh in blood, laying aside our former enmity?
POSEIDON
Thou mayst; for o'er the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble
spell, great queen Athena.
ATHENA
For thy forgiving mood my thanks! Somewhat have I to impart
affecting both thyself and me, O king.
POSEIDON
Bringst thou fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from
some lesser power?
ATHENA
From none of these; but on behalf of Troy, whose soil we tread, am
I come to seek thy mighty aid, to make it one with mine.
POSEIDON
What! hast thou laid thy former hate aside to take compassion on
the town now that it is burnt to ashes?
ATHENA
First go back to the former point; wilt thou make common cause
with me in the scheme I purpose?
POSEIDON
Ay surely; but I would fain learn thy wishes, whether thou art
come to help Achaens or Phrygians.
ATHENA
I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the
Achaean host impose a return that they will rue.
POSEIDON
Why leap'st thou thus from mood to mood? Thy love and hate both go
too far, on whomsoever centred.
ATHENA
Dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?
POSEIDON
Surely, in the hour that Aias tore Cassandra thence.
ATHENA
Yea, and the Achaeans did naught, said naught to him.
POSEIDON
And yet 'twas by thy mighty aid they sacked Ilium.
ATHENA
For which cause I would join with thee to work their bane.
POSEIDON
My powers are ready at thy will. What is thy intent?
ATHENA
A returning fraught with woe will I impose on them.
POSEIDON
While yet they stay on shore, or as they cross the briny deep?
ATHENA
When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will
Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the
sky; yea, and he promises to grant me his levin-bolts to hurl on the
Achaeans and fire their ships. And do thou, for thy part, make the
Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill
Euboea's hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth
to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.
POSEIDON
So shall it be, for the boon thou cravest needs but few words. I
will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconus and the
reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of
Caphareus shall be strown with many a corpse. Mount thou to Olympus,
and taking from thy father's hand his lightning bolts, keep careful
watch against the hour when Argos' host lets slip its cables. A fool
is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead
man's hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round
himself, and dies. Exeunt.
HECUBA (Awakening)
Lift thy head, unhappy lady, from the ground; thy neck upraise;
this is Troy no more, no longer am I queen in Ilium. Though fortune
change, endure thy lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune's
tack, steer not thy barque of life against the tide, since chance must
guide thy course. Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my
hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the
high-blown pride of ancestors! how cabined now how brought to
nothing after all What woe must I suppress, or what declare? What
plaintive dirge shall I awake? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer
lying here stretched upon this pallet hard! O my head, my temples,
my side! Ah! could I but turn over, and he now on this, now on that,
to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail
ascends. Fore 'en this is music to the wretched, to chant their
cheerless dirge of sorrow.
Ye swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium o'er the deep dark
sea, past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute's ill-omened music
and the dulcet voice of pipes, even to the bays of Troyland (alack the
day!), wherein ye tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt,
in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on
Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; murderess she of Priam, sire
of fifty children, the cause why I, the hapless Hecuba, have wrecked
my life upon this troublous strand. Oh that I should sit here o'er
against the tent of Agamemnon Forth from my home to slavery they
hale my aged frame, while from my head in piteous wise the hair is
shorn for grief. Ah! hapless wives of those mail-clad sons of Troy!
Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep, for Ilium is now but a
ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that o're her fledglings screams,
will begin the strain; how different from that song I sang to the gods
in days long past, as I leaned on Priam's staff, and beat with my foot
in Phrygian time to lead the dance!

Enter CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN.

SEMI-CHORUS I
O Hecuba why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What mean thy
words? For I heard thy piteous wail echo through the building, and a
pang terror shoots through each captive Trojan's breast, as pent
within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.
HECUBA
My child, e'en now the hands of Argive rowers are busy at their
ships.
SEMI-CHORUS I
Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really bear me
hence in sorrow from my country in their fleet?
HECUBA
I know not, though I guess our doom.
SEMI-CHORUS I
O misery! woe to us Trojan dames, soon to hear the order given,
"Come forth from the house; the Argives are preparing to return."
HECUBA
Oh! do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic
prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another.
Woe to thee, ill-fated Troy, thy sun is set; and woe to thy unhappy
children, quick and dead alike, who are leaving thee behind!
SEMI-CHORUS II
With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn
of thee, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to
take my wretched life, whether the sailors at the prow are making
ready to ply their oars.
HECUBA
My child, a fearful dread seized on my wakeful heart and sent me
hither.
SEMI-CHORUS II
Hath a herald from the Danai already come? To whom am I, poor
captive, given as a slave?
HECUBA
Thou art not far from being allotted now.
SEMI-CHORUS II
Woe worth the day! What Argive or Phthiotian chief will bear me
far from Troy, alas! unto his home, or haply to some island fastness?
HECUBA
Ah me! ah me! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what
far clime? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, set to
keep the gate or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in
Troy.
CHORUS
Woe, woe is thee! What piteous dirge wilt thou devise to mourn the
outrage done thee? No more through Ida's looms shall I-ply the shuttle
to and fro. I look my last and latest on my children's bodies;
henceforth shall I endure surpassing misery; it may be as the
unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that
brings me to this!); it may be as a wretched slave I from Peirene's
sacred fount shall draw their store of water.
Oh be it ours to come to Theseus' famous realm, a land of joy!
Never, never let me see Eurotas' swirling tide, hateful home of Helen,
there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troyland
waste! Yon holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at
Olympus' foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of
wealth and teeming fruitage; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I
could wish to reach that land. They tell me too Hephaestus' home,
beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of
Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to worth. Or may I
find a home on that shore which lieth very nigh Ionia's sea, a land by
Crathis watered, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint,
feeding with its holy waves and making glad therewith the home of
heroes good and true.
But mark! a herald from the host of Danai, with store of fresh
proclamations, comes hasting hither. What is his errand? what saith
he? List, for we are slaves to Dorian lords henceforth.

Enter TALTHYBIUS.

TALTHYBIUS
Hecuba, thou knowest me from my many journeys to and fro as herald
'twixt the Achaean host and Troy; no stranger I to thee, lady, even
aforetime, I Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.
HECUBA
Ah, kind friends, 'tis come! what I so long have dreaded.
TALTHYBIUS
The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you
feared.
HECUBA
Ah me! What city didst thou say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?
TALTHYBIUS
Each warrior took his prize in turn; ye were not all at once
assigned.
HECUBA
To whom hath the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan
dames doth a happy fortune await?
TALTHYBIUS
I know, but ask thy questions separately, not all at once.
HECUBA
Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?
TALTHYBIUS
King Agamemnon hath chosen her out for himself.
HECUBA
To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!
TALTHYBIUS
Nay, to share with him his stealthy love.
HECUBA
What! Phoebus' virgin-priestess, to whom the god with golden locks
granted the boon of maidenhood?
TALTHYBIUS
The dart of love hath pierced his heart, love for the frenzied
maid.
HECUBA
Daughter, cast from thee the sacred keys, and from thy body tear
the holy wreaths that drape thee in their folds.
TALTHYBIUS
Why! is it not an honour high that she should win our monarch's
love?
HECUBA
What have ye done to her whom late ye took from me-my child?
TALTHYBIUS
Dost mean Polyxena, or whom dost thou inquire about?
HECUBA
To whom hath the lot assigned her?
TALTHYBIUS
To minister at Achilles' tomb hath been appointed her.
HECUBA
Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man's slave! What custom, what
ordinance is this amongst Hellenes, good sir?
TALTHYBIUS
Count thy daughter happy: 'tis well with her.
HECUBA
What wild words are these? say, is she still alive?
TALTHYBIUS
Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.
HECUBA
And what of mail-clad Hector's wife, sad Andromache? declare her
fate.
TALTHYBIUS
She too was a chosen prize; Achilles' son did take her.
HECUBA
As for me whose hair is white with age, who need to hold a staff
to be to me a third foot, whose servant am I to be?
TALTHYBIUS
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, hath taken thee to be his slave.
HECUBA
O God! Now smite the close-shorn head! tear your cheeks with
your nails. God help me! I have fallen as a slave to a treacherous foe
I hate, a monster of lawlessness, one that by his double tongue hath
turned against us all that once was friendly in his camp, changing
this for that and that for this again. Oh weep for me, ye Trojan
dames! Undone! undone and lost! ah woel a victim to a most unhappy
lot!
CHORUS
Thy fate, royal mistress, now thou knowest; but for me, what
Hellene or Achaean is master of my destiny?
TALTHYBIUS
Ho, servants! haste and bring Cassandra forth to me here, that I
may place her our captain's hands, and then conduct to the rest of the
chiefs the captives each hath had assigned. Ha what is the blaze of
torches there within? What do these Trojan dames? Are they firing
the chambers, because they must leave this land and be carried away to
Argos? Are they setting themselves aflame in their longing for
death? Of a truth the free bear their troubles in cases like this with
a stiff neck. Ho, there! open! lest their deed, which suits them
well but finds small favour with the Achaeans, bring blame on me.
HECUBA
'Tis not that they are setting aught ablaze, but my child
Cassandra, frenzied maid, comes rushing wildly hither.

Enter CASSANDRA carrying torches

CASSANDRA
Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god's
service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen,
king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden
soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage!
Since thou, my mother, art ever busied with tears and lamentations
in thy mourning for my father's death and for our country dear, I at
my own nuptials am making this torch to blaze and show its light, in
thy honour, O Hymen, king of marriage! Grant thy light too, Hecate, at
the maiden's wedding, as the custom is. Nimbly lift the foot aloft,
lead on the dance, with cries of joy, as if to greet my father's happy
fate. To dance I hold a sacred duty; come, Phoebus, lead the way,
for 'tis in thy temple mid thy bay-trees that I minister. Hail
Hymen, god of marriage! Hymen, hail! Come, mother mine, and join the
dance, link thy steps with me, and circle in the gladsome measure, now
here, now there. Salute the bride on her wedding-day with hymns and
cries of joy. Come, ye maids of Phrygia in raiment fair, sing my
marriage with the husband fate ordains that I should wed.
CHORUS
Hold the frantic maiden, royal mistress mine, lest with nimble
foot she rush to the Argive army.
HECUBA
Thou god of fire,'tis thine to light the bridal torch for men, but
piteous is the flame thou kindlest here, beyond my blackest bodings.
Ah, my child! how little did I ever dream that such would be thy
marriage, a captive, and of Argos tool Give up the torch to me; thou
dost not bear its blaze aright in thy wild frantic course, nor have
thy afflictions left thee in thy sober senses, but still art thou as
frantic as before. Take in those torches, Trojan friends, and for
her wedding madrigals weep your tears instead.
CASSANDRA
O mother, crown my head with victor's wreaths; rejoice in my royal
match; lead me to my lord; nay, if thou find me loth at all, thrust me
there by force; for if Loxias be indeed a prophet, Agamemnon, that
famous king of the Achaeans, will find in me a bride more fraught with
woe to him than Helen. For I will slay him and lay waste his home to
avenge my father's and my bretheren's death. But of the deed itself
I will not speak; nor will I tell of that axe which shall sever my
neck and the necks of others, or of the conflict ending in a
mother's death, which my marriage shall cause, nor of the overthrow of
Atreus' house; but I, for all my frenzy, will so far rise above my
frantic fit, that I will prove this city happier far than those
Achaeans, who for the sake of one woman and one man's love of her have
lost a countless host in seeking Helen. Their captain too, whom men
call wise, hath lost for what he hated most what most he prized,
yielding to his brother for a woman's sake-and she a willing prize
whom no man forced-the joy he had of his own children in his home. For
from the day that they did land upon Scamander's strand, their doom
began, not for loss of stolen frontier nor yet for fatherland with
frowning towers; whomso Ares slew, those never saw their babes
again, nor were they shrouded for the tomb by hand of wife, but in a
foreign land they lie. At home the case was still the same; wives were
dying widows, parents were left childless in their homes, having
reared their sons for others, and none is left to make libations of
blood upon the ground before their tombs. Truly to such praise as this
their host can make an ample claim. Tis better to pass their shame
in silence by, nor be mine the Muse to tell that evil tale. But the
Trojans were dying, first for their fatherland, fairest fame to win;
whomso the sword laid low, all these found friends to bear their
bodies home and were laid to rest in the bosom of their native land,
their funeral rites all duly paid by duteous hands. And all such
Phrygians as escaped the warrior's death lived ever day by day with
wife and children by them-joys the Achaeans had left behind. As for
Hector and his griefs, prithee hear how stands the case; he is dead
and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this
was a result of the Achaeans' coming; for had they remained at home,
his worth would have gone unnoticed. So too with Paris, he married the
daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he
made in his family would have been forgotten. Whoso is wise should fly
from making war; but if he be brought to this pass, a noble death will
crown his city with glory, a coward's end with shame. Wherefore,
mother mine, thou shouldst not pity thy country or my spousal, for
this my marriage will destroy those whom thou and I most hate.
CHORUS
How sweetly at thy own sad lot thou smilest, chanting a strain,
which, spite of thee, may prove thee wrong!
TALTHYBIUS
Had not Apollo turned thy wits astray, thou shouldst not for
nothing have sent my chiefs with such ominous predictions forth on
their way. But, after all, these lofty minds, reputed wise, are
nothing better than those that are held as naught. For that mighty
king of all Hellas, own son of Atreus, has yielded to a passion for
this mad maiden of all others; though I am poor enough, yet would I
ne'er have chosen such a wife as this. As for thee, since thy senses
are not whole, I give thy taunts 'gainst Argos and thy praise of
Troy to the winds to carry away. Follow me now to the ships to grace
the wedding of our chief. And thou too follow, whensoe'er the son of
Laertes demands thy presence, for thou wilt serve a mistress most
discreet, as all declare who came to Ilium.
CASSANDRA
A clever fellow this menial! Why is it heralds hold the name
they do? All men unite in hating with one common hate the servants who
attend on kings or governments. Thou sayest my mother shall come to
the halls of Odysseus; where then be Apollo's words, so clear to me in
their interpretation, which declare that here she shall die? What else
remains, I will not taunt her with. Little knows he, the luckless
wight, the sufferings that await him; or how these ills I and my
Phrygians endure shall one day seem to him precious as gold. For
beyond the ten long years spent at Troy he shall drag out other ten
and then come to his country all alone, by the route where fell
Charybdis lurks in a narrow channel 'twixt the rocks; past Cyclops the
savage shepherd, and Ligurian Circe that turneth men to swine;
shipwrecked oft upon the salt sea-wave; fain to eat the lotus, and the
sacred cattle of the sun, whose flesh shall utter in the days to
come a human voice, fraught with misery to Odysseus. But to briefly
end this history, he shall descend alive to Hades, and, though he
'scape the waters' flood, yet shall he find a thousand troubles in his
home when he arrives. Enough why do I recount the troubles of
Odysseus? Lead on, that I forthwith may wed my husband for his home in
Hades' halls. Base thou art, and basely shalt thou be buried, in the
dead of night when day is done, thou captain of that host of Danai,
who thinkest so proudly of thy fortune! Yea, and my corpse cast
forth in nakedness shall the rocky chasm with its flood of wintry
waters give to wild beasts to make their meal upon, hard by my
husband's tomb, me the handmaid of Apollo. Farewell, ye garlands of
that god most dear to me! farewell, ye mystic symbols! I here resign
your feasts, my joy in days gone by. Go, I tear ye from my body, that,
while yet mine honour is intact, I may give them to the rushing
winds to waft to thee, my prince of prophecy I Where is yon
general's ship? Whither must I go to take my place thereon? Lose no
further time in watching for a favouring breeze to fill thy sails,
doomed as thou art to carry from this land one of the three avenging
spirits. Fare thee well, mother mine! dry thy tears, O country dear!
yet a little while, my brothers sleeping in the tomb and my own father
true, and ye shall welcome me; yet shall victory crown my advent
'mongst the dead, when I have overthrown the home of our destroyers,
the house of the sons of Atreus.

Exeunt TALTHYBIUS and CASSANDRA

CHORUS
Ye guardians of the grey-haired Hecuba, see how your mistress is
sinking speechless to the ground! Take hold of her! will ye let her
fall, ye worthless slaves? lift up again, from where it lies, her
silvered head.
HECUBA
Leave me lying where I fell, my maidens unwelcome service grows
not welcome ever-my sufferings now, my troubles past, afflictions
yet to come, all claim this lowly posture. Gods of heaven! small
help I find in calling such allies, yet is there something in the form
of invoking heaven, whenso we fall on evil days. First will I
descant upon my former blessings; so shall I inspire the greater
pity for my present woes. Born to royal estate and wedded to a royal
lord, I was the mother of a race of gallant sons; no mere ciphers
they, but Phrygia's chiefest pride, children such as no Trojan or
Hellenic or barbarian mother ever had to boast. All these have I
seen slain by the spear of Hellas, and at their tombs have I shorn off
my hair; with these my eyes I saw their sire, my Priam, butchered on
his own hearth, and my city captured, nor did others bring this bitter
news to me. The maidens I brought up to see chosen for some marriage
high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away.
Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them
ever in the days to come. And last, to crown my misery, shall I be
brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. And there the tasks that
least befit the evening of my life will they impose on me, to watch
their gates and keep the keys, me Hector's mother, or bake their
bread, and on the ground instead of my royal bed lay down my
shrunken limbs, with tattered rags about my wasted frame. a shameful
garb for those who once were prosperous. Ah, woe is me! and this is
what I bear and am to bear for one weak woman's wooing! O my daughter,
O Cassandra! whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how
cruel the lot that ends thy virgin days! And thou, Polyxena! my
child of sorrow, where, oh! where art thou? None of all the many
sons and daughters have I born comes to aid a wretched mother. Why
then raise me up? What hope is left us? Guide me, who erst trod so
daintily the streets of Troy, but now am but a slave, to a bed upon
the ground, nigh some rocky ridge, that thence I may cast me down
and perish, after I have wasted my body with weeping. Of all the
prosperous crowd, count none a happy man before he die.
CHORUS
Sing me, Muse, a tale of Troy, a funeral dirge in strains
unheard as yet, with tears the while; for now will I uplift for Troy a
piteous chant, telling how I met my doom and fell a wretched captive
to the Argives by reason of a four-footed beast that moved on
wheels, in the hour that Achaea's sons left at our gates that horse,
loud rumbling on its way, with its trappings of gold and its freight
of warriors; and our folk cried out as they stood upon the rocky
citadel, "Up now ye whose toil is o'er, and drag this sacred image
to the shrine of the Zeus-born maiden, goddess of our Ilium!" Forth
from his house came every youth and every grey-head too; and with
songs of joy they took the fatal snare within. Then hastened all the
race of Phrygia to the gates, to make the goddess a present of an
Argive band ambushed in the polished mountain-pine, Dardania's ruin, a
welcome gift to be to her, the virgin queen of deathless steeds; and
with nooses of cord they dragged it, as it had been a ship's dark
hull, to the stone-built fane of the goddess Pallas, and set it on
that floor so soon to drink our country's blood. But, as they laboured
and made merry, came on the pitchy night; loud the Libyan flute was
sounding, and Phrygian songs awoke, while maidens beat the ground with
airy foot, uplifting their gladsome song; and in the halls a blaze
of torchlight shed its flickering shadows on sleeping eyes. In that
hour around the house was I singing as I danced to that maiden of
the hills, the child of Zeus; when lo! there rang along the town a cry
of death which filled the homes of Troy, and little babes in terror
clung about their mothers' skirts, as forth from their ambush came the
warrior-band, the handiwork of maiden Pallas. Anon the altars ran with
Phrygian blood, and desolation reigned o'er every bed where young
men lay beheaded, a glorious crown for Hellas won, ay, for her, the
nurse of youth, but for our Phrygian fatherland a bitter grief.
Look, Hecuba! dost see Andromache advancing hither on a foreign car?
and with her, clasped to her throbbing breast, is her dear Astyanax,
Hector's child.

Enter ANDROMACHE.

HECUBA
Whither art thou borne, unhappy wife, mounted on that car, side by
side with Hector's brazen arms and Phrygian spoils of war, with
which Achilles' son will deck the shrines of Phthia on his return from
Troy?
ANDROMACHE
My Achaean masters drag me hence.
HECUBA
Woe is thee!
ANDROMACHE
Why dost thou in note of woe utter the dirge that is mine?
HECUBA
Ah me!
ANDROMACHE
For these sorrows.
HECUBA
O Zeus!
ANDROMACHE
And for this calamity.
HECUBA
O my children!
ANDROMACHE
Our day is past.
HECUBA
Joy is fled, and Troy o'erthrown.
ANDROMACHE
Woe is me!
HECUBA
Dead too all my gallant sons!
ANDROMACHE
Alack and well-a-day!
HECUBA
Ah me for my-
ANDROMACHE
Misery!
HECUBA
Piteous the fate-
ANDROMACHE
Of our city,
HECUBA
Smouldering in the smoke.
ANDROMACHE
Come, my husband, come to me!
HECUBA
Ah hapless wife! thou callest on my son who lieth in the tomb.
ANDROMACHE
Thy wife's defender, come!
HECUBA
Do thou, who erst didst make the Achaeans grieve, eldest of the
sons I bare to Priam in the days gone by, take me to thy rest in
Hades' halls!
ANDROMACHE
Bitter are these regrets, unhappy mother, bitter these woes to
bear; our city ruined, and sorrow evermore to sorrow added, through
the will of angry heaven, since the day that son' of thine escaped his
doom, he that for a bride accursed brought destruction on the Trojan
citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of
Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy is come to slavery's yoke.
HECUBA
O my country, O unhappy land, I weep for thee now left behind; now
dost thou behold thy piteous end; and thee, my house, I weep,
wherein I suffered travail. O my children! reft of her city as your
mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow!
oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget
their griefs and never shed a tear.
CHORUS
What sweet relief to sufferers 'tis to weep, to mourn, lament, and
chant the dirge that tells of grief!
ANDROMACHE
Dost thou see this, mother of that Hector, who once laid low in
battle many a son of Argos?
HECUBA
I see that it is heaven's way to exalt what men accounted
naught, and ruin what they most esteemed.
ANDROMACHE
Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are to
slavery brought-a bitter, bitter change.
HECUBA
This is necessity's grim law; it was but now Cassandra was torn
with brutal violence from my arms.
ANDROMACHE
Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias hath appeared to wrong thy
daughter; but there be other ills for thee.
HECUBA
Ay, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with
evil in the struggle to be first.
ANDROMACHE
Thy daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles' tomb, an
offering to his lifeless corpse.
HECUBA
O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long since told me,
a truth obscurely uttered.
ANDROMACHE
I saw her with mine eyes; so I alighted from the chariot, and
covered her corpse with a mantle, and smote upon my breast.
HECUBA
Alas! my child, for thy unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, ah
me! for this thy shameful death!
ANDROMACHE
Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after
all a happier fate than this my life.
HECUBA
Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is
annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.
ANDROMACHE
Hear, O mother of children give ear to what I urge so well, that I
may cheer my drooping spirit. 'Tis all one, I say, ne'er to have
been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with
misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he
who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his
spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of thine
is dead as though she ne'er had seen the light, and little she recks
of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a
higher lot than most, yet missed my lick in life. For all that
stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector's home. In
the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether
there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its
train an evil name; therefore I gave up any wish to do so, and abode
ever within my house, nor would I admit the clever gossip women
love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was
content therewith. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest
eye before my lord; and well I knew where I might rule my lord, and
where 'twas best to yield to him; the fame whereof hath reached the
Achaean host, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive,
Achilles' son would have me as his wife, and I must serve in the house
of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and ope my
heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while,
if I hate him, I shall incur my master's displeasure. And yet they say
a single night removes a woman's dislike for her husband; nay, I do
hate the woman who, when she hath lost her former lord, transfers
her love by marrying another. Not e'en the horse, if from his fellow
torn, will cheerfully draw the yoke; and yet the brutes have neither
speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man's inferiors. O
Hector mine! in thee I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom,
noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty; whilst thou didst
take me from my father's house a spotless bride, thyself the first
to make this maiden wife. But now death hath claimed thee, and I to
Hellas am soon to sail, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of
slavery. Hath not then the dead Polyxena, for whom thou wailest,
less evil to bear than I? I have not so much as hope, the last
resource of every human heart, nor do I beguile myself with dreams
of future bliss, the very thought whereof is sweet.
CHORUS
Thou art in the self-same plight as I; thy lamentations for
thyself remind me of my own sad case.
HECUBA
I never yet have set foot on a ship's deck, though I have seen
such things in pictures and know of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if
there come a storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save
themselves by toil; one at the tiller stands, another sets himself
to work the sheets, a third meantime is baling out the ship; but if
tempestuous waves arise to overwhelm them, they yield to fortune and
commit themselves to the driving billows. Even so I, by reason of my
countless troubles, am dumb and forbear to say a word; for Heaven with
its surge of misery is too strong for me. Cease, Oh cease, my
darling child, to speak of Hector's fate; no tears of thine can save
him; honour thy present lord, offering thy sweet nature as the bait to
win him. If thou do this, thou wilt cheer thy friends as well as
thyself, and thou shalt rear my Hector's child to lend stout aid to
Ilium, that so thy children in the after-time may build her up
again, and our city yet be stablished. But lo! our talk must take a
different turn; who is this Achaean menial I see coming hither, sent
to tell us of some new design?

Enter TALTHYBIUS.

TALTHYBIUS
Oh hate me not, thou that erst wert Hector's wife, the bravest
of the Phrygians! for my tongue would fain not tell that which the
Danai and sons of Pelops both command.
ANDROMACHE
What is it? Thy prelude bodeth evil news.
TALTHYBIUS
'Tis decreed thy son is-how can I tell my news?
ANDROMACHE
Surely not to have a different master from me?
TALTHYBIUS
None of all Achaea's chiefs shall ever lord it over him.
ANDROMACHE
Is it their will to leave him here, a remnant yet of Phrygia's
race?
TALTHYBIUS
I know no words to break the sorrow lightly to thee.
ANDROMACHE
I thank thee for thy consideration, unless indeed thou hast good
news to tell.
TALTHYBIUS
They mean to slay thy son; there is my hateful message to thee.
ANDROMACHE
O God! this is worse tidings than my forced marriage.
TALTHYBIUS
So spake Odysseus to the assembled Hellenes, and his word
prevails.
ANDROMACHE
Oh once again ah me there is no measure in the woes I bear.
TALTHYBIUS
He said they should not rear so brave a father's son.
ANDROMACHE
May such counsels yet prevail about children of his!
TALTHYBIUS
From Troy's battlements he must be thrown. Let it be even so,
and thou wilt show more wisdom; cling not to him, but bear thy sorrows
with heroic heart, nor in thy weakness deem that thou art strong.
For nowhere hast thou any help; consider this thou must; thy husband
and thy city are no more, so thou art in our power, and I alone am
match enough for one weak woman; wherefore I would not see thee bent
on strife, or any course to bring thee shame or hate, nor would I hear
thee rashly curse the Achaeans. For if thou say aught whereat the host
grow wroth, this child will find no burial nor pity either. But if
thou hold thy peace and with composure take thy fate, thou wilt not
leave his corpse unburied, and thyself wilt find more favour with
the Achaeans.
ANDROMACHE
My child! my own sweet babe and priceless treasure! thy death
the foe demands, and thou must leave thy wretched mother. That which
saves the lives of others, proves thy destruction, even thy sire's
nobility; to thee thy father's valiancy has proved no boon. O the
woeful wedding rites, that brought me erst to Hector's home, hoping to
be the mother of a son that should rule o'er Asia's fruitful fields
instead of serving as a victim to the sons of Danaus! Dost weep, my
babe? dost know thy hapless fate? Why clutch me with thy hands and
to my garment cling, nestling like a tender chick beneath my wing?
Hector will not rise again and come gripping his famous spear to bring
thee salvation; no kinsman of thy sire appears, nor might of
Phrygian hosts; one awful headlong leap from the dizzy height and thou
wilt dash out thy life with none to pity thee Oh to clasp thy tender
limbs, a mother's fondest joy! Oh to breathe thy fragrant breath! In
vain it seems these breasts did suckle thee, wrapped in thy
swaddling-clothes; all for naught I used to toil and wore myself away!
Kiss thy mother now for the last time, nestle to her that bare thee,
twine thy arms about my neck and join thy lips to mine! O ye Hellenes,
cunning to devise new forms of cruelty, why slay this child who
never wronged any? Thou daughter of Tyndarus, thou art no child of
Zeus, but sprung, I trow, of many a sire, first of some evil demon,
next of Envy, then of Murder and of Death, and every horror that the
earth begets. That Zeus was never sire of thine I boldly do assert,
bane as thou hast been to many a Hellene and barbarian too.
Destruction catch thee! Those fair eyes of thine have brought a
shameful ruin on the fields of glorious Troy. Take the babe and bear
him hence, hurl him down if so ye list, then feast upon his flesh!
'Tis heaven's high will we perish, and I cannot ward the deadly stroke
from my child. Hide me and my misery; cast me into the ship's hold;
for 'tis to a fair wedding I am going, now that I have lost my child!
CHORUS
Unhappy Troy! thy thousands thou hast lost for one woman's sake
and her accursed wooing.
TALTHYBIUS
Come, child, leave fond embracing of thy woful mother, and mount
the high coronal of thy ancestral towers, there to draw thy parting
breath, as is ordained. Take him hence. His should the duty be to do
such herald's work, whose heart knows no pity and who loveth
ruthlessness more than my soul doth.

Exeunt ANDROMACHE and TALTHYBIUS with ASTYANAX.

HECUBA
O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and thy
mother of thy life. How is it with me? What can I do for thee, my
luckless babe? for thee I smite upon my head and beat my breast, my
only gift; for that alone is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for
thee! Is not our cup full? What is wanting now to our utter and
immediate ruin?
CHORUS
O Telamon, King of Salamis, the feeding ground of bees, who hast
thy home in a sea-girt isle that lieth nigh the holy hills where first
Athena made the grey olive-branch to appear, a crown for heavenly
heads and a glory unto happy Athens, thou didst come in knightly
brotherhood with that great archer, Alcemena's son, to sack our city
Ilium, in days gone by, on thy advent from Hellas, what time he led
the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed for the steeds denied him, and at
the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened
cables to the stern, and forth therefrom he took the bow his hand
could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy
breath of fire he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus' line and
chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks hath
the bloodstained spear destroyed Dardania's walls.
In vain, it seems, thou Phrygian boy, pacing with dainty step amid
thy golden chalices, dost thou fill high the cup of Zeus, a service
passing fair; seeing that the land of thy birth is being consumed by
fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its
young, so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our grey-haired
mothers. The dew-fed springs where thou didst bathe, the course
where thou didst train, are now no more; but thou beside the throne of
Zeus art sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon thy fair young face,
while the spear of Hellas lays the land of Priam waste. Ah! Love,
Love, who once didst seek these Dardan halls, deep-seated in the
hearts of heavenly gods, how high didst thou make Troy to tower in
those days, allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge
reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light to man
is dear, turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of
our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband from
this land, whom on a day a car of gold and spangled stars caught up
and carried thither, great source of hope to his native country; but
all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.

Enter MENELAUS.

MENELAUS
Hail! thou radiant orb by whose fair light I now shall capture her
that was my wife, e'en Helen; for I am that Menelaus, who hath
toiled so hard, I and Achaea's host. To Troy I came, not so much as
men suppose to take this woman, but to punish him who from my house
stole my wife, traitor to my hospitality. But he, by heaven's will,
hath paid the penalty, ruined, and his country too, by the spear of
Hellas. And I am come to bear that Spartan woman hence-wife I have
no mind to call her, though she once was mine; for now she is but
one among the other Trojan dames who share these tents as captives.
For they-the very men who toiled to take her with the spear-have
granted her to me to slay, or, if I will, to spare and carry back with
me to Argos. Now my purpose is not to put her to death in Troy, but to
carry her to Hellas in my seaborne ship, and then surrender her to
death, a recompense to all whose friends were slain in Ilium. Ho! my
trusty men, enter the tent, and drag her out to me by her hair with
many a murder foul; and when a favouring breeze shall blow, to
Hellas will we convey her.
HECUBA
O thou that dost support the earth and restest thereupon,
whosoe'er thou art, a riddle past our ken! be thou Zeus, or natural
necessity, or man's intellect, to thee I pray; for, though thou
treadest o'er a noiseless path, all thy dealings with mankind are by
justice guided.
MENELAUS
How now? Strange the prayer thou offerest unto heaven!
HECUBA
I thank thee, Menelaus, if thou wilt slay that wife of thine.
Yet shun the sight of her, lest she smite thee with regret. For she
ensnares the eyes of men, o'erthrows their towns, and burns their
houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so dost thou
and those her victims too.

Enter HELEN.

HELEN
Menelaus! this prelude well may fill me with alarm; for I am haled
with violence by thy servants' hands and brought before these tents.
Still, though I am well-nigh sure thou hatest me, yet would I fain
inquire what thou and Hellas have decided about my life.
MENELAUS
To judge thy case required no great exactness; the host with one
consent-that host whom thou didst wrong-handed thee over to me to die.
HELEN
May I answer this decision, proving that my death, if to die I am,
will be unjust?
MENELAUS
I came not to argue, but to slay thee.
HECUBA
Hear her, Menelaus; let her not die for want of that, and let me
answer her again, for thou knowest naught of her villainies in Troy;
and the whole case, if thus summed up, will insure her death against
all chance of an escape.
MENELAUS
This boon needs leisure; still, if she wishes to speak, the
leave is given. Yet will I grant her this because of thy words, that
she may hear them, and not for her own sake.
HELEN
Perhaps thou wilt not answer me, from counting me a foe, whether
my words seem good or ill. Yet will I put my charges and thine over
against each other, and then reply to the accusations I suppose thou
wilt advance against me. First, then, she was the author of these
troubles by giving birth to Paris; next, old Priam ruined Troy and me,
because he did not slay his babe Alexander, baleful semblance of a
fire-brand, long ago. Hear what followed. This Paris was to judge
the claims of three rival goddesses; so Pallas offered him command
of all the Phrygians, and the destruction of Hellas; Hera promised
he should spread his dominion over Asia, and the utmost bounds of
Europe, if he would decide for her; but Cypris spoke in rapture of
my loveliness, and promised him this boon, if she should have the
preference o'er those twain for beauty; now mark the inference I
deduce from this; Cypris won the day o'er them, and thus far hath my
marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that ye are not subject to
barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants
crushed. What Hellas gained, was ruin to me, a victim for my beauty
sold, and now am I reproached for that which should have set a crown
upon my head. But thou wilt say I am silent on the real matter at
issue, how it was I started forth and left thy house by stealth.
With no mean goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him
Alexander or Paris, as thou wilt; and him didst thou, thrice guilty
wretch, leave behind thee in thy house, and sail away from Sparta to
the land of Crete. Enough of this! For all that followed I must
question my own heart, not thee; what frantic thought led me to follow
the stranger from thy house, traitress to my country and my home?
Punish the goddess, show thyself more mighty e'en than Zeus, who,
though he lords it o'er the other gods, is yet her slave; wherefore
I may well be pardoned. Still, from hence thou mightest draw a
specious argument against me; when Paris died, and Earth concealed his
corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet,
since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what
I fain had done; yea, and the warders on the towers and watchmen on
the walls can bear me witness, for oft they found me seeking to let
myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements; but there was
that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off by force to be his
wife against the will of Troy. How then, my lord, could I be justly
put to death by thee, with any show of right, seeing that he wedded me
against my will, and those my other natural gifts have served a bitter
slavery, instead of leading on to triumph? If 'tis thy will indeed
to master gods, that very wish displays thy folly.
CHORUS
O my royal mistress, defend thy children's and thy country.'s
cause, bringing to naught her persuasive arguments, for she pleads
well in spite of all her villainy; 'tis monstrous this!
HECUBA
First will I take up the cause of those goddesses, and prove how
she perverts the truth. For I can ne'er believe that Hera or the
maiden Pallas would have been guilty of such folly, as to sell, the
one, her Argos to barbarians, or that Pallas e'er would make her
Athens subject to the Phrygians, coming as they did in mere wanton
sport to Ida to contest the palm of beauty. For why should goddess
Hera set her heart so much on such a prize? Was it to win a nobler
lord than Zeus? or was Athena bent on finding 'mongst the gods a
husband, she who in her dislike of marriage won from her sire the boon
of remaining unwed? Seek not to impute folly to the goddesses, in
the attempt to gloze o'er thy own sin; never wilt thou persuade the
wise. Next thou hast said-what well may make men jeer-that Cypris came
with my son to the house of Menelaus. Could she not have stayed
quietly in heaven and brought thee and Amyclae to boot to Ilium?
Nay! my son was passing fair, and when thou sawest him thy fancy
straight became thy Cypris; for every sensual act that men commit,
they lay upon this goddess, and rightly does her name of Aphrodite
begin the word for "senselessness"; so when thou didst catch sight
of him in gorgeous foreign garb, ablaze with gold, thy senses
utterly forsook thee. Yea, for in Argos thou hadst moved in simple
state, but, once free of Sparta, 'twas thy fond hope to deluge by
thy lavish outlay Phrygia's town, that flowed with gold; nor was the
palace of Menelaus rich enough for thy luxury to riot in. Ha! my son
carried thee off by force, so thou savest; what Spartan saw this? what
cry for help didst thou ever raise, though Castor was still alive, a
vigorous youth, and his brother also, not yet amid the stars? Then
when thou wert come to Troy, and the Argives were on thy track, and
the mortal combat was begun, whenever tidings came to thee of
Menelaus' prowess, him wouldst thou praise, to grieve my son,
because he had so powerful a rival in his love; but if so the
Trojans prospered, Menelaus was nothing to thee. Thy eye was fixed
on Fortune, and by such practice wert thou careful to follow in her
steps, careless of virtue's cause. And then, in spite of all, thou
dost assert that thou didst try to let thyself down from the towers by
stealth with twisted cords, as if loth to stay? Pray then, wert thou
ever found fastening the noose about thy neck, or whetting the
knife, as noble wife would have done in regret for her former husband?
And yet full oft I advised thee saying, "Get thee gone, daughter,
and let my sons take other brides; I will help thee to steal away, and
convey thee to the Achaean fleet; oh end the strife 'twixt us and
Hellas!" But this was bitter in thy ears. For thou wert wantoning in
Alexander's house, fain to have obeisance done thee by barbarians.
Yes, 'twas a proud time for thee; and now after all this thou hast
bedizened thyself, and come forth and hast dared to appear under the
same sky as thy husband, revolting wretchl Better hadst thou come in
tattered raiment, cowering humbly in terror, with hair shorn short, if
for thy past sins thy feeling were one of shame rather than
effrontery. O Menelaus, hear the conclusion of my argument; crown
Hellas by slaying her as she deserves, and establish this law for
all others of her sex, e'en death to every traitress to her husband.
CHORUS
Avenge thee, Menelaus, on thy wife, as is worthy of thy home and
ancestors, clear thyself from the reproach of effeminacy at the lips
of Hellas, and let thy foes see thy spirit.
MENELAUS
Thy thoughts with mine do coincide, that she, without
constraint, left my palace, and sought a stranger's love, and now
Cypris is introduced for mere bluster. Away to those who shall stone
thee, and by thy speedy death requite the weary toils of the Achaeans,
that thou mayst learn not to bring shame on me!
HELEN
Oh, by thy knees, I implore thee, impute not that heaven-sent
affliction to me, nor slay me; pardon, I entreat!
HECUBA
Be not false to thy allies, whose death this woman caused; on
their behalf, and for my children's sake, I sue to thee.
MENELAUS
Peace, reverend dame; to her I pay no heed. Lo! I bid my
servants take her hence, aboard the ship, wherein she is to sail.
HECUBA
Oh never let her set foot within the same ship as thee.
MENELAUS
How now? is she heavier than of yore?
HECUBA
Who loveth once, must love alway.
MENELAUS
Why, that depends how those we love are minded. But thy wish shall
be granted; she shall not set foot upon the same ship with me; for thy
advice is surely sound; and when she comes to Argos she shall die a
shameful death as is her due, and impress the need of chastity on
all her sex; no easy task; yet shall her fate strike their foolish
hearts with terror, e'en though they be more lost to shame than she.

Exit MENELAUS, dragging HELEN with him.

CHORUS
So then thou hast delivered into Achaea's hand, O Zeus, thy shrine
in Ilium and thy fragrant altar, the offerings of burnt sacrifice with
smoke of myrrh to heaven uprising, and holy Pergamos, and glens of Ida
tangled with ivy's growth, where rills of melting snow pour down their
flood, a holy sunlit land that bounds the world and takes the god's
first rays! Gone are thy sacrifices! gone the dancer's cheerful shout!
gone the vigils of the gods as night closed in! Thy images of carven
gold are now no more; and Phrygia's holy festivals, twelve times a
year, at each full moon, are ended now. 'Tis this that filleth me with
anxious thought whether thou, O king, seated on the sky, thy
heavenly throne, carest at all that my city is destroyed, a prey to
the furious fiery blast. Ah! my husband, fondly loved, thou art a
wandering spectre; unwashed, unburied lies thy corpse, while o'er
the sea the ship sped by wings will carry me to Argos, land of steeds,
where stand Cyclopian walls of stone upreared to heaven. There in
the gate the children gather, hanging round their mothers' necks,
and weep their piteous lamentation, "O mother, woe is me! torn from
thy sight Achaeans bear me away from thee to their dark ship to row me
o'er the deep to sacred Salamis or to the hill' on the Isthmus, that
o'erlooks two seas, the key to the gates of Pelops." Oh may the
blazing thunderbolt, hurled in might from its holy home, smite the
barque of Menelaus full amidships as it is crossing the Aegean main,
since he is carrying me away in bitter sorrow from the shores of Ilium
to be a slave in Hellas, while the daughter of Zeus still keeps her
golden mirrors, delight-of maidens' hearts. Never may he reach his
home in Laconia or his father's hearth and home, nor come to the
town of Pitane or the temple of the goddess' with the gates of bronze,
having taken as his captive her whose marriage brought disgrace on
Hellas through its length and breadth and woful anguish on the streams
of Simois! Ah me! ah me! new troubles on my country fall, to take
the place of those that still are fresh! Behold, ye hapless wives of
Troy, the corpse of Astyanax! whom the Danai have cruelly slain by
hurling him from the battlements.

Enter TALTHYBIUS and attendants, bearing
the corpse of ASTYANAX on HECTOR's shield.

TALTHYBIUS
Hecuba, one ship alone delays its plashing oars, and it is soon to
sail to the shores of Phthia freighted with the remnant of the
spoils of Achilles' son; for Neoptolemus is already out at sea, having
heard that new calamities have befallen Peleus, for Acastus, son of
Pelias, hath banished him the realm. Wherefore he is gone, too quick
to indulge in any delay, and with him goes Andromache, who drew many a
tear from me what time she started hence, wailing her country and
crying her farewell to Hector's tomb. And she craved her master
leave to bury this poor dead child of Hector who breathed his last
when from the turrets hurled, entreating too that he would not carry
this shield, the terror of the Achaeans-this shield with plates of
brass wherewith his father would gird himself-to the home of Peleus or
to the same bridal bower whither she, herself the mother of this
corpse, would be led, a bitter sight to her, but let her bury the
child therein instead of in a coffin of cedar or a tomb of stone,
and to thy hands commit the corpse that thou mayst deck it with
robes and garlands as best thou canst with thy present means; for
she is far away and her master's haste prevented her from burying
the child herself. So we, when thou the corpse hast decked, will
heap the earth above and set thereon a spear; but do thou with thy
best speed perform thy allotted task; one toil however have I
already spared thee, for I crossed Scamander's stream and bathed the
corpse and cleansed its wounds. But now will I go to dig a grave for
him, that our united efforts shortening our task may speed our ship
towards home.

Exit TALTHYBIUS.

HECUBA
Place the shield upon the ground, Hector's shield so deftly
rounded, a piteous sight, a bitter grief for me to see. O ye Achaeans,
more reason have ye to boast of your prowess than your wisdom I Why
have ye in terror of this child been guilty of murder never matched
before? Did ye fear that some day he would rear again the fallen walls
of Troy? it seems then ye were nothing after all, when, though
Hector's fortunes in the war were prosperous and he had ten thousand
other arms to back him, we still were daily overmatched; and yet,
now that our city is taken and every Phrygian slain, ye fear a
tender babe like this! Out upon his fear! say I, who fears, but
never yet hath reasoned out the cause. Ah! my beloved, thine is a
piteous death indeed! Hadst thou died for thy city, when thou hadst
tasted of the sweets of manhood, of marriage, and of godlike power
o'er others, then wert thou blest, if aught herein is blest. But now
after one glimpse, one dream thereof thou knowest them no more, my
child, and hast no joy of them, though heir to all. Ah, poor babe! how
sadly have thy own father's walls, those towers that Loxias reared,
shorn from thy head the locks thy mother fondled, and so oft caressed,
from which through fractured bones the face of murder grins-briefly to
dismiss my shocking theme. O hands, how sweet the likeness ye retain
of his father, and yet ye lie limp in your sockets before me! Dear
mouth, so often full of words of pride, death hath closed thee, and
thou hast not kept the promise thou didst make, when nestling in my
robe, "Ah, mother mine, many a lock of my hair will I cut off for
thee, and to thy tomb will lead my troops of friends, taking a fond
farewell of thee." But now 'tis not thy hand that buries me, but I, on
whom is come old age with loss of home and children, am burying
thee, a tender child untimely slain. Ah me! those kisses numberless,
the nurture that I gave to thee, those sleepless nights-they all are
lost! What shall the bard inscribe-upon thy tomb about thee?
"Argives once for fear of him slew this child!" Foul shame should that
inscription be to Hellas. O child, though thou hast no part in all thy
father's wealth, yet shalt thou have his brazen shield wherein to find
a tomb. Ah! shield that didst keep safe the comely arm of Hector,
now hast thou lost thy valiant keeper! How fair upon thy handle lies
his imprint, and on the rim, that circles round the targe, are marks
of sweat, that trickled oft from Hector's brow as he pressed it
'gainst his beard in battle's stress. Come, bring forth, from such
store as we have, adornment for the hapless dead, for fortune gives no
chance now for offerings fair; yet of such as I possess, shalt thou
receive these gifts. Foolish mortal he! who thinks his luck secure and
so rejoices; for fortune, like a madman in her moods, springs
towards this man, then towards that; and none ever experiences the
same unchanging luck.
CHORUS
Lo! all is ready and they are bringing at thy bidding from the
spoils of Troy garniture to put upon the dead.
HECUBA
Ah! my child, 'tis not as victor o'er thy comrades with horse or
bow-customs Troy esteems, without pursuing them to excess-that
Hector's mother decks thee now with ornaments from the store that once
was thine, though now hath Helen, whom the gods abhor, reft thee of
thine own, yea, and robbed thee of thy life and caused thy house to
perish root and branch.
CHORUS
Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and thou the cause, my
mighty prince in days now passed!
HECUBA
About thy body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honour, which
should have clad thee on thy marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of
Asia's daughters. Thou too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent
of countless triumphs past, accept thy crown, for though thou share
the dead child's tomb, death cannot touch thee; for thou dost merit
honours far beyond those arms' that the crafty knave Odysseus won.
CHORUS
Alas! ah me! thee, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a
cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, thou mother!
HECUBA
Ah me!
CHORUS
Wail for the dead.
HECUBA
Woe is me!
CHORUS
Alas! for thy unending sorrow!
HECUBA
Thy wounds in part will I bind up with bandages, a wretched
leech in name alone, without reality; but for the rest, thy sire
must look to that amongst the dead.
CHORUS
Smite, oh smite upon thy head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is
me!
HECUBA
My kind, good friends!
CHORUS
Speak out, good the word that was on thy lips.
HECUBA
It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are
my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities.
In vain did we sacrifice to them. Had not the god caught us in his
grip and plunged us headlong 'neath the earth, we should have been
unheard of, nor ever sung in Muses' songs, furnishing to bards of
after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor
tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I deem it
makes but little difference to the dead, although they get a
gorgeous funeral; for this is but a cause of idle pride to the living.

The corpse is carried off to burial

CHORUS
Alas! for thy unhappy mother, who o'er thy corpse hath closed
the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most
happy in thy lot, ah! what a tragic death is thine! Ha! who are
those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming
torches in their hands? Some new calamity will soon on Troy alight.

Enter TALTHYBIUS above. Soldiers are seen
on the battlements of Troy, torch in hand.

TALTHYBIUS
Ye captains, whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam,
to you I speak. No longer keep the firebrand idle in your hands, but
launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may
set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy. And you, ye
sons of Troy-to let my orders take at once a double form-start for the
Achaean ships for your departure hence, soon as ever the leaders of
the host blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And thou, unhappy
grey haired dame, follow; for yonder come servants from Odysseus to
fetch thee, for to him thou art assigned by lot to be a slave far from
thy country.
HECUBA
Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit this,
of all my sorrows; forth from my land I go; my city is ablaze with
flame. Yet, thou aged foot, make one painful struggle to hasten,
that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that erst
hadst such a grand career amongst barbarian towns, soon wilt thou be
reft of that splendid name. Lo! they are burning thee, and leading
us e'en now from our land to slavery. Great gods! Yet why call on
the gods? They did not hearken e'en aforetime to our call. Come, let
us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing
ruin were a noble death for me.
TALTHYBIUS
Thy sorrows drive thee frantic, poor lady. Go, lead her hence,
make no delay, for ye must deliver her into the hand of Odysseus,
conveying to him his prize.
HECUBA
O son of Cronos, prince of Phrygia, father of our race, dost
thou behold our sufferings now, unworthy of the stock of Dardanus?
CHORUS
He sees them, but our mighty city is a city no more, and Troy's
day is done.
HECUBA
Woe! thrice woe upon me! Ilium is ablaze; the homes of Pergamos
and its towering walls are now one sheet of flame.
CHORUS
As the smoke soars on wings to heaven, so sinks our city to the
'ground before the spear. With furious haste both fire and foeman's
spear devour each house.
HECUBA
Hearken, my children, hear your mother's voice.
CHORUS
Thou art calling on the dead with voice of lamentation.
HECUBA
Yea, as I stretch my aged limbs upon the ground, and beat upon the
earth with both my hands.
CHORUS
I follow thee and kneel, invoking from the nether world my hapless
husband.
HECUBA
I am being dragged and hurried away.
CHORUS
O the sorrow of that cry!
HECUBA
From my own dear country, to dwell beneath a master's roof. Woe is
me! O Priam, Priam, unburied, left without a friend, naught dost
thou know of my cruel fate.
CHORUS
No, for o'er his eyes black death hath drawn his pall-a holy man
by sinners slain!
HECUBA
Woe for the temples of the gods! Woe for our dear city!
CHORUS
Woe!
HECUBA
Murderous flame and foeman's spear are now your lot.
CHORUS
Soon will ye tumble to your own loved soil, and be forgotten.
HECUBA
And the dust, mounting to heaven on wings like smoke, will rob
me of the sight of my home.
CHORUS
The name of my country will pass into obscurity; all is
scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be.
HECUBA
Did ye hear that and know its purport?
CHORUS
Aye, 'twas the crash of the citadel.
HECUBA
The shock will whelm our city utterly. O woe is me! trembling,
quaking limbs, support my footsteps! away! to face the day that begins
thy slavery.
CHORUS
Woe for our unhappy town! And yet to the Achaean fleet advance.
HECUBA
Woe for thee, O land that nursed my little babes!
CHORUS
Ah! woe!
Exeunt OMNES.