HECUBA [5]
all my fifty children left! POLYXENA What message can I take for thee to Hector or thy aged lord? HECUBA Tell them that of all women I am the most miserable. POLYXENA Ah! bosom and breasts that fed me with sweet food! HECUBA Woe is thee, my child, for this untimely fate! POLYXENA Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra! HECUBA "Fare well!" others do, but not thy mother, no! POLYXENA Thou too, my brother Polydorus, who art in Thrace, the home of steeds! HECUBA Aye, if he lives, which much I doubt; so luckless am I every way. POLYXENA Oh yes, he lives; and, when thou diest, he will close thine eyes. HECUBA I am dead; sorrow has forestalled death here. POLYXENA Come veil my head, Odysseus, and take me hence; for now, ere falls the fatal blow, my heart is melted by my mother's wailing, and hers no less by mine. O light of day! for still may I call thee by thy name, though now my share in thee is but the time I take to go 'twixt this and the sword at Achilles' tomb.
(ODYSSEUS and his attendants lead POLYXENA away.)
HECUBA Woe is me! I faint; my limbs sink under me. O my daughter, embrace thy mother, stretch out thy hand, give it me again; leave me not childless! Ah, friends! 'tis my death-blow. Oh! to see that Spartan woman, Helen, sister of the sons of Zeus, in such a plight; for her bright eyes have caused the shameful fall of Troy's once prosperous town. (HECUBA sinks fainting to the ground.) CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O breeze from out the deep arising, that waftest swift galleys, ocean's coursers, across the surging main! whither wilt thou bear me the child of sorrow? To whose house shall I be brought, to be his slave and chattel? to some haven in the Dorian land, or in Phthia, where men say Apidanus, father of fairest streams, makes fat and rich the tilth?
antistrophe 1
or to an island home, sent on a voyage of misery by oars that sweep the brine, leading a wretched existence in halls where the first-created palm and the bay-tree put forth their sacred shoots for dear Latona, memorial fair of her divine travail? and there with the maids of Delos shall I hymn the golden snood and bow of Artemis their goddess?
strophe 2
Or in the city of Pallas, the home of Athena of the beauteous chariot, shall I upon her saffron robe yoke horses to the car, embroidering them on my web in brilliant varied shades, or the race of Titans, whom Zeus the son of Cronos lays to their unending sleep with bolt of flashing flame?
antistrophe 2
Woe is me for my children! woe for my ancestors, and my country which is falling in smouldering ruin 'mid the smoke, sacked by the Argive spear! while I upon a foreign shore am called a slave for-sooth, leaving Asia, Europe's handmaid, and receiving in its place deadly marriage-bower.
(The herald, TALTHYBIUS, enters.)
TALTHYBIUS Where can I find Hecuba, who once was queen of Ilium, ye Trojan maidens? LEADER OF THE CHORUS There she lies near thee, Talthybius, stretched full length upon the ground, wrapt in her robe. TALTHYBIUS Great Zeus! what can I say? that thine eye is over man? or that we hold this false opinion all to no purpose, thinking there is any race of gods, when it is chance that rules the mortal sphere? Was not this the queen of wealthy Phrygia, the wife of Priam highly blest? And now her city is utterly o'erthrown by the foe, and she, a slave in her old age, her children dead, lies stretched upon the ground, soiling her hair, poor lady in the dust. Well, well; old as I am, may death be my lot before I am caught in any foul mischance. Arise, poor queen! lift up thyself and raise that hoary head. HECUBA (stirring) Ah! who art thou that wilt not let my body rest? why disturb
(ODYSSEUS and his attendants lead POLYXENA away.)
HECUBA Woe is me! I faint; my limbs sink under me. O my daughter, embrace thy mother, stretch out thy hand, give it me again; leave me not childless! Ah, friends! 'tis my death-blow. Oh! to see that Spartan woman, Helen, sister of the sons of Zeus, in such a plight; for her bright eyes have caused the shameful fall of Troy's once prosperous town. (HECUBA sinks fainting to the ground.) CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O breeze from out the deep arising, that waftest swift galleys, ocean's coursers, across the surging main! whither wilt thou bear me the child of sorrow? To whose house shall I be brought, to be his slave and chattel? to some haven in the Dorian land, or in Phthia, where men say Apidanus, father of fairest streams, makes fat and rich the tilth?
antistrophe 1
or to an island home, sent on a voyage of misery by oars that sweep the brine, leading a wretched existence in halls where the first-created palm and the bay-tree put forth their sacred shoots for dear Latona, memorial fair of her divine travail? and there with the maids of Delos shall I hymn the golden snood and bow of Artemis their goddess?
strophe 2
Or in the city of Pallas, the home of Athena of the beauteous chariot, shall I upon her saffron robe yoke horses to the car, embroidering them on my web in brilliant varied shades, or the race of Titans, whom Zeus the son of Cronos lays to their unending sleep with bolt of flashing flame?
antistrophe 2
Woe is me for my children! woe for my ancestors, and my country which is falling in smouldering ruin 'mid the smoke, sacked by the Argive spear! while I upon a foreign shore am called a slave for-sooth, leaving Asia, Europe's handmaid, and receiving in its place deadly marriage-bower.
(The herald, TALTHYBIUS, enters.)
TALTHYBIUS Where can I find Hecuba, who once was queen of Ilium, ye Trojan maidens? LEADER OF THE CHORUS There she lies near thee, Talthybius, stretched full length upon the ground, wrapt in her robe. TALTHYBIUS Great Zeus! what can I say? that thine eye is over man? or that we hold this false opinion all to no purpose, thinking there is any race of gods, when it is chance that rules the mortal sphere? Was not this the queen of wealthy Phrygia, the wife of Priam highly blest? And now her city is utterly o'erthrown by the foe, and she, a slave in her old age, her children dead, lies stretched upon the ground, soiling her hair, poor lady in the dust. Well, well; old as I am, may death be my lot before I am caught in any foul mischance. Arise, poor queen! lift up thyself and raise that hoary head. HECUBA (stirring) Ah! who art thou that wilt not let my body rest? why disturb