Part 12 (1/2)
Child of the s.h.i.+eld-bearer, Alas, Hector's child!
Great Earth, the All-mother, Taketh thee unto her With wailing wild!
_Others._ Mother of misery, Give Death his song!
(HEC. Woe!) Aye and bitterly
(HEC. Woe!) We too weep for thee, And the infinite wrong!
[_During these lines_ HECUBA, _kneeling by the body, has been performing a funeral rite, symbolically staunching the dead Child's wounds._
HECUBA.
I make thee whole[45]; I bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul.
This wound and this I heal with linen white: O emptiness of aid!... Yet let the rite Be spoken. This and.... Nay, not I, but he, Thy father far away shall comfort thee!
[_She bows her head to the ground and remains motionless and unseeing._
CHORUS.
Beat, beat thine head: Beat with the wailing chime Of hands lifted in time: Beat and bleed for the dead.
Woe is me for the dead!
HECUBA.
O Women! Ye, mine own....
[_She rises bewildered, as though she had seen a vision_.
LEADER.
Hecuba, speak!
Oh, ere thy bosom break....
HECUBA.
Lo, I have seen the open hand of G.o.d[46]; And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate, Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell And bulls' blood on the altars!... All is well.
Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust Our high things low and shook our hills as dust, We had not been this splendour, and our wrong An everlasting music for the song Of earth and heaven!
Go, women: lay our dead In his low sepulchre. He hath his meed Of robing. And, methinks, but little care Toucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there Have rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we, That dream, we living and our vanity!
[_The Women bear out the dead Child upon the s.h.i.+eld, singing, when presently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of the City_.
CHORUS.
_Some Women_.
Woe for the mother that bare thee, child, Thread so frail of a hope so high, That Time hath broken: and all men smiled About thy cradle, and, pa.s.sing by, Spoke of thy father's majesty.
Low, low, thou liest!
_Others_.
Ha! Who be these on the crested rock?
Fiery hands in the dusk, and a shock Of torches flung! What lingereth still, O wounded City, of unknown ill, Ere yet thou diest?