Part 11 (1/2)
[_Strophe_ I.
And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense, And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion?
The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence, The myrrh on the air and the wreathed towers gone?
And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows, The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows, And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows, The lit house most holy of the Dawn?
EURIPIDES
_Others._
[_Antistrophe I._
The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy, The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer: The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy, The twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear: My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high, Were they all to thee as nothing, thou throned in the sky, Throned in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die, Pa.s.seth in the wind and the flare?
_A Woman._
[_Strophe 2._
Dear one, O husband mine, Thou in the dim dominions Driftest with waterless lips, Unburied; and me the s.h.i.+ps Shall bear o'er the bitter brine, Storm-birds upon angry pinions, Where the towers of the Giants[43] s.h.i.+ne O'er Argos cloudily, And the riders ride by the sea.
_Others._
And children still in the Gate Crowd and cry, A mult.i.tude desolate, Voices that float and wait As the tears run dry: 'Mother, alone on the sh.o.r.e They drive me, far from thee: Lo, the dip of the oar, The black hull on the sea!
Is it the Isle Immortal, Salamis, waits for me?
Is it the Rock that broods Over the sundered floods Of Corinth, the ancient portal Of Pelops' sovranty?'
_A Woman._
[_Antistrophe_ 2.
Out in the waste of foam, Where rideth dark Menelaus, Come to us there, O white And jagged, with wild sea-light And cras.h.i.+ng of oar-blades, come, O thunder of G.o.d, and slay us: While our tears are wet for home, While out in the storm go we, Slaves of our enemy!
_Others._
And, G.o.d, may Helen be there[44], With mirror of gold, Decking her face so fair, Girl-like; and hear, and stare, And turn death-cold: Never, ah, never more The hearth of her home to see, Nor sand of the Spartan sh.o.r.e, Nor tombs where her fathers be, Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling, Nor the towers of Pitane For her face was a dark desire Upon Greece, and shame like fire, And her dead are welling, welling, From red Simos to the sea!
[TALTHYBIUS, _followed by one or two Soldiers and bearing the child_ ASTYANAX _dead, is seen approaching._
LEADER.
Ah, change on change! Yet each one racks This land with evil manifold; Unhappy wives of Troy, behold, They bear the dead Astyanax, Our prince, whom bitter Greeks this hour Have hurled to death from Ilion's tower.
TALTHYBIUS.
One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet, Lapping the wave, to gather the last freight Of Pyrrhus' spoils for Thessaly. The chief Himself long since hath parted, much in grief For Peleus' sake, his grandsire, whom, men say, Acastus, Pelias' son, in war array Hath driven to exile. Loath enough before Was he to linger, and now goes the more In haste, bearing Andromache, his prize.
'Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes, Weeping her fatherland, as o'er the wave She gazed, and speaking words to Hector's grave.
Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done For burial of this babe, thine Hector's son, That now from Ilion's tower is fallen and dead.
And, lo! this great bronze-fronted s.h.i.+eld, the dread Of many a Greek, that Hector held in fray, O never in G.o.d's name--so did she pray-- Be this borne forth to hang in Peleus' hall Or that dark bridal chamber, that the wall May hurt her eyes; but here, in Troy o'erthrown, Instead of cedar wood and vaulted stone, Be this her child's last house.... And in thine hands She bade me lay him, to be swathed in bands Of death and garments, such as rest to thee In these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she Hath gone her ways, and, for her master's haste, May no more fold the babe unto his rest.
Howbeit, so soon as he is garlanded And robed, we will heap earth above his head And lift our sails.... See all be swiftly done, As thou art bidden. I have saved thee one Labour. For as I pa.s.sed Scamander's stream Hard by, I let the waters run on him, And cleansed his wounds.--See, I will go forth now And break the hard earth for his grave: so thou And I will haste together, to set free Our oars at last to beat the homeward sea!
[_He goes out with his Soldiers, leaving the body of the Child in_ HECUBA'S _arms._
HECUBA.