Part 3 (1/2)

FOURTH WOMAN.

Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be, Or some lone island of the tossing sea, Far, far from Troy?

HECUBA.

And I the aged, where go I, A winter-frozen bee, a slave Death-shapen, as the stones that lie Hewn on a dead man's grave: The children of mine enemy To foster, or keep watch before The threshold of a master's door, I that was Queen in Troy!

A WOMAN TO ANOTHER.

[_Strophe 2_.

And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?

THE OTHER.

The shuttle still shall flit and change Beneath my fingers, but the loom, Sister, be strange.

ANOTHER (_wildly_).

Look, my dead child! My child, my love, The last look....

ANOTHER.

Oh, there cometh worse.

A Greek's bed in the dark....

ANOTHER.

G.o.d curse That night and all the powers thereof!

ANOTHER.

Or pitchers to and fro to bear To some Pirene[12] on the hill, Where the proud water craveth still Its broken-hearted minister.

ANOTHER.

G.o.d guide me yet to Theseus' land[13], The gentle land, the famed afar....

ANOTHER.

But not the hungry foam--Ah, never!-- Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river, To bow to Menelaus' hand, That wasted Troy with war!

A WOMAN.

[_Antistrophe 2_.

They told us of a land high-born, Where glimmers round Olympus' roots A lordly river, red with corn And burdened fruits.

ANOTHER.