THE TROJAN WOMEN OF EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY

GILBERT MURRAY, LL. D. , D. LITT. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

1915

THE TROJAN WOMEN

In his clear preface, Gilbert Murray says with truth that _The TrojanWomen_, valued by the usage of the stage, is not a perfect play. "It isonly the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought intomusic. " Yet it is one of the greater dramas of the elder world. In onesituation, with little movement, with few figures, it flashes out agreat dramatic lesson, the infinite pathos of a successful wrong. It hasin it the very soul of the tragic. It even goes beyond the limitedtragic, and hints that beyond the defeat may come a greater glory thanwill be the fortune of the victors. And thus through its pity and terrorit purifies our souls to thoughts of peace. 

Great art has no limits of locality or time. Its tidings are timeless, and its messages are universal. _The Trojan Women_ was first performedin 415 B. C. , from a story of the siege of Troy which even then wasancient history. But the pathos of it is as modern to us as it was tothe Athenians. The terrors of war have not changed in three thousandyears. Euripides had that to say of war which we have to say of itto-day, and had learned that which we are even now learning, that whenmost triumphant it brings as much wretchedness to the victors as to thevanquished. In this play the great conquest "seems to be a great joy andis in truth a great misery. " The tragedy of war has in no essentialaltered. The god Poseidon mourns over Troy as he might over the citiesof to-day, when he cries:

"How are ye blind, Ye treaders down of cities, ye that castTemples to desolation, and lay wasteTombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lieThe ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!"

To the cities of this present day might the prophetess Cassandra speakher message:

"Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!Yet if war come, there is a crown in deathFor her that striveth well and perishethUnstained: to die in evil were the stain!"

A throb of human sympathy as if with one of our sisters of to-day comesto us at the end, when the city is destroyed and its queen would throwherself, living, into its flames. To be of the action of this play theimagination needs not to travel back over three thousand years ofhistory. It can simply leap a thousand leagues of ocean. 

If ever wars are to be ended, the imagination of man must end them. Tothe common mind, in spite of all its horrors, there is still somethingglorious in war. Preachers have preached against it in vain; economistshave argued against its wastefulness in vain. The imagination of a greatpoet alone can finally show to the imagination of the world that eventhe glories of war are an empty delusion. Euripides shows us, as thecentre of his drama, women battered and broken by inconceivabletorture--the widowed Hecuba, Andromache with her child dashed to death, Cassandra ravished and made mad--yet does he show that theirs are theunconquered and unconquerable spirits. The victorious men, flushed withpride, have remorse and mockery dealt out to them by those they foughtfor, and go forth to unpitied death. Never surely can a great tragedyseem more real to us, or purge our souls more truly of the unreality ofour thoughts and feelings concerning vital issues, than can The TrojanWomen at this moment of the history of the world. 

FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD. 

_May the first, 1915_. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Judged by common standards, the Troädes is far from a perfect play; itis scarcely even a good play. It is an intense study of one greatsituation, with little plot, little construction, little or no relief orvariety. The only movement of the drama is a gradual extinguishing ofall the familiar lights of human life, with, perhaps, at the end, asuggestion that in the utterness of night, when all fears of a possibleworse thing are passed, there is in some sense peace and even glory. Butthe situation itself has at least this dramatic value, that it isdifferent from what it seems. 

The consummation of a great conquest, a thing celebrated in paeans andthanksgivings, the very height of the day-dreams of unregenerate man--itseems to be a great joy, and it is in truth a great misery. It isconquest seen when the thrill of battle is over, and nothing remains butto wait and think. We feel in the background the presence of theconquerors, sinister and disappointed phantoms; of the conquered men, after long torment, now resting in death. But the living drama forEuripides lay in the conquered women. It is from them that he has namedhis play and built up his scheme of parts: four figures clearly lit andheroic, the others in varying grades of characterisation, nameless andbarely articulate, mere half-heard voices of an eternal sorrow. 

Indeed, the most usual condemnation of the play is not that it is dull, but that it is too harrowing; that scene after scene passes beyond thedue limits of tragic art. There are points to be pleaded against thiscriticism. The very beauty of the most fearful scenes, in spite of theirfearfulness, is one; the quick comfort of the lyrics is another, fallinglike a spell of peace when the strain is too hard to bear (cf. P. 89). But the main defence is that, like many of the greatest works of art, the _Troädes_ is something more than art. It is also a prophecy, abearing of witness. And the prophet, bound to deliver his message, walksoutside the regular ways of the artist. 

For some time before the _Troädes_ was produced, Athens, now entirely inthe hands of the War Party, had been engaged in an enterprise which, though on military grounds defensible, was bitterly resented by the morehumane minority, and has been selected by Thucydides as the greatcrucial crime of the war. She had succeeded in compelling the neutralDorian island of Mêlos to take up arms against her, and after a longsiege had conquered the quiet and immemorially ancient town, massacredthe men and sold the women and children into slavery. Mêlos fell in theautumn of 416 B. C. The _Troädes_ was produced in the following spring. And while the gods of the prologue were prophesying destruction at seafor the sackers of Troy, the fleet of the sackers of Mêlos, flushed withconquest and marked by a slight but unforgettable taint of sacrilege, was actually preparing to set sail for its fatal enterprise againstSicily. 

Not, of course, that we have in the _Troädes_ a case of politicalallusion. Far from it. Euripides does not mean Mêlos when he says Troy, nor mean Alcibiades' fleet when he speaks of Agamemnon's. But he writesunder the influence of a year which to him, as to Thucydides, had beenfilled full of indignant pity and of dire foreboding. This tragedy isperhaps, in European literature, the first great expression of thespirit of pity for mankind exalted into a moving principle; a principlewhich has made the most precious, and possibly the most destructive, elements of innumerable rebellions, revolutions, and martyrdoms, and ofat least two great religions. 

Pity is a rebel passion. Its hand is against the strong, against theorganised force of society, against conventional sanctions and acceptedGods. It is the Kingdom of Heaven within us fighting against the brutepowers of the world; and it is apt to have those qualities of unreason, of contempt for the counting of costs and the balancing of sacrifices, of recklessness, and even, in the last resort, of ruthlessness, which sooften mark the paths of heavenly things and the doings of the childrenof light. It brings not peace, but a sword. 

So it was with Euripides. The _Troädes_ itself has indeed almost nofierceness and singularly little thought of revenge. It is only thecrying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought into music, as itwere, and made beautiful by "the most tragic of the poets. " But itsauthor lived ever after in a deepening atmosphere of strife and even ofhatred, down to the day when, "because almost all in Athens rejoiced athis suffering, " he took his way to the remote valleys of Macedon towrite the _Bacchae_ and to die. 

G. M. 

THE TROJAN WOMEN

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

THE GOD POSEIDON. 

THE GODDESS PALLAS ATHENA. 

HECUBA, _Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector and Paris_. 

CASSANDRA, _daughter of Hecuba, a prophetess_. 

ANDROMACHE, _wife of Hector, Prince of Troy_. 

HELEN, _wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta; carried off by Paris, Princeof Troy_. 

TALTHYBIUS, _Herald of the Greeks_. 

MENELAUS, _King of Sparta, and, together with his brother Agamemnon, General of the Greeks_. 

SOLDIERS ATTENDANT ON TALTHYBIUS AND MENELAUS. 

CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN, YOUNG AND OLD, MAIDEN AND MARRIED. 

_The Troädes was first acted in the year_ 415 B. C. "_The first prize waswon by Xenocles, whoever he may have been, with the four plays Oedipus, Lycaon, Bacchae and Athamas, a Satyr-play. The second by Euripides withthe Alexander, Palamêdês, Troädes and Sisyphus, a Satyr-play_. "--AELIAN, _Varia Historia_, ii. 8. 

THE TROJAN WOMEN

_The scene represents a battlefield, a few days after the battle. At theback are the walls of Troy, partially ruined. In front of them, to rightand left, are some huts, containing those of the Captive Women who havebeen specially set apart for the chief Greek leaders. At one side somedead bodies of armed men are visible. In front a tall woman with whitehair is lying on the ground asleep. _

_It is the dusk of early dawn, before sunrise. The figure of the god _POSEIDON _ is dimly seen before the walls. _

POSEIDON. [1]

Up from Aegean caverns, pool by poolOf blue salt sea, where feet most beautifulOf Nereid maidens weave beneath the foamTheir long sea-dances, I, their lord, am come, Poseidon of the Sea. 'Twas I whose power, With great Apollo, builded tower by towerThese walls of Troy; and still my care doth standTrue to the ancient People of my hand;Which now as smoke is perished, in the shockOf Argive spears. Down from Parnassus' rockThe Greek Epeios came, of Phocian seed, And wrought by Pallas' mysteries a SteedMarvellous[2], big with arms; and through my wallIt passed, a death-fraught image magical. The groves are empty and the sanctuariesRun red with blood. Unburied Priam liesBy his own hearth, on God's high altar-stair, And Phrygian gold goes forth and raiment rareTo the Argive ships; and weary soldiers roamWaiting the wind that blows at last for home, For wives and children, left long years away, Beyond the seed's tenth fullness and decay, To work this land's undoing. 

 And for me, Since Argive Hera conquereth, and sheWho wrought with Hera to the Phrygians' woe, Pallas, behold, I bow mine head and goForth from great Ilion[3] and mine altars old. When a still city lieth in the holdOf Desolation, all God's spirit thereIs sick and turns from worship. --Hearken whereThe ancient River waileth with a voiceOf many women, portioned by the choiceOf war amid new lords, as the lots leapFor Thessaly, or Argos, or the steepOf Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are, High women, chosen from the waste of warFor the great kings, behind these portals hid;And with them that Laconian Tyndarid[4], Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize. And this unhappy one--would any eyesGaze now on Hecuba? Here at the GatesShe lies 'mid many tears for many fatesOf wrong. One child beside Achilles' graveIn secret slain[5], Polyxena the brave, Lies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone;And, lo, Cassandra[6], she the Chosen One, Whom Lord Apollo spared to walk her wayA swift and virgin spirit, on this dayLust hath her, and she goeth garlandedA bride of wrath to Agamemnon's bed. 

[_He turns to go; and another divine Presencebecomes visible in the dusk. It is thegoddess_ PALLAS ATHENA. 

 O happy long ago, farewell, farewell, Ye shining towers and mine old citadel;Broken by Pallas[7], Child of God, or stillThy roots had held thee true. 

PALLAS. 

 Is it the willOf God's high Brother, to whose hand is givenGreat power of old, and worship of all Heaven, To suffer speech from one whose enmitiesThis day are cast aside?

POSEIDON. 

 His will it is:Kindred and long companionship withal, Most high Athena, are things magical. 

PALLAS. 

Blest be thy gentle mood!--Methinks I seeA road of comfort here, for thee and me. 

POSEIDON. 

Thou hast some counsel of the Gods, or wordSpoken of Zeus? Or is it tidings heardFrom some far Spirit?

PALLAS. 

 For this Ilion's sake, Whereon we tread, I seek thee, and would makeMy hand as thine. 

POSEIDON. 

 Hath that old hate and deepFailed, where she lieth in her ashen sleep?Thou pitiest her?

PALLAS. 

 Speak first; wilt thou be oneIn heart with me and hand till all be done?

POSEIDON. 

Yea; but lay bare thy heart. For this land's sakeThou comest, not for Hellas?

PALLAS. 

 I would makeMine ancient enemies laugh for joy, and bringOn these Greek ships a bitter homecoming. 

POSEIDON. 

Swift is thy spirit's path, and strange withal, And hot thy love and hate, where'er they fall. 

PALLAS. 

A deadly wrong they did me, yea withinMine holy place: thou knowest?

POSEIDON. 

 I know the sinOf Ajax[8], when he cast Cassandra down. . . . 

PALLAS. 

And no man rose and smote him; not a frownNor word from all the Greeks!

POSEIDON. 

 And 'twas thine handThat gave them Troy!

PALLAS. 

 Therefore with thee I standTo smite them. 

POSEIDON. 

 All thou cravest, even nowIs ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?

PALLAS. 

An homecoming that striveth ever moreAnd cometh to no home. 

POSEIDON. 

 Here on the shoreWouldst hold them or amid mine own salt foam?

PALLAS. 

When the last ship hath bared her sail for home! Zeus shall send rain, long rain and flaw of drivenHail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven;To me his levin-light he promisethO'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death:Do thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steepWith war of waves and yawning of the deep, Till dead men choke Euboea's curling bay. So Greece shall dread even in an after dayMy house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!

POSEIDON. 

I give thy boon unbartered. These mine handsShall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that crossThe Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos, Scyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-drivenCaphêreus with the bones of drownèd menShall glut him. --Go thy ways, and bid the SireYield to thine hand the arrows of his fire. Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall windHer cable coil for home! [_Exit_ PALLAS. 

 How are ye blind, Ye treaders down of cities, ye that castTemples to desolation, and lay wasteTombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lieThe ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!

[_Exit_ POSEIDON. 

 * * * * *

_The day slowly dawns_: HECUBA _wakes_. 

HECUBA. 

Up from the earth, O weary head! This is not Troy, about, above-- Not Troy, nor we the lords thereof. Thou breaking neck, be strengthenèd!Endure and chafe not. The winds rave And falter. Down the world's wide road, Float, float where streams the breath of God;Nor turn thy prow to breast the wave. 

Ah woe!. . . For what woe lacketh here? My children lost, my land, my lord. O thou great wealth of glory, storedOf old in Ilion, year by year

We watched . . . And wert thou nothingness? What is there that I fear to say? And yet, what help?. . . Ah, well-a-day, This ache of lying, comfortless

And haunted! Ah, my side, my brow And temples! All with changeful pain My body rocketh, and would fainMove to the tune of tears that flow:For tears are music too, and keepA song unheard in hearts that weep. [_She rises and gazes towards the Greek ships far off on the shore. _

O ships, O crowding faces Of ships[9], O hurrying beat Of oars as of crawling feet, How found ye our holy places?Threading the narrows through, Out from the gulfs of the Greek, Out to the clear dark blue, With hate ye came and with joy, And the noise of your music flew, Clarion and pipe did shriek, As the coilèd cords ye threw, Held in the heart of Troy!

What sought ye then that ye came? A woman, a thing abhorred: A King's wife that her lordHateth: and Castor's[10] shame Is hot for her sake, and the reedsOf old Eurôtas stirWith the noise of the name of her. She slew mine ancient King, The Sower of fifty Seeds[11], And cast forth mine and me, As shipwrecked men, that cling To a reef in an empty sea. 

Who am I that I sit Here at a Greek king's door, Yea, in the dust of it? A slave that men drive before, A woman that hath no home, Weeping alone for her dead; A low and bruisèd head, And the glory struck therefrom. [_She starts up from her solitary brooding, and calls to the otherTrojan Women in the huts. _

O Mothers of the Brazen Spear, And maidens, maidens, brides of shame, Troy is a smoke, a dying flame;Together we will weep for her:I call ye as a wide-wing'd bird Calleth the children of her fold, To cry, ah, not the cry men heard In Ilion, not the songs of old, That echoed when my hand was true On Priam's sceptre, and my feet Touched on the stone one signal beat, And out the Dardan music rolled;And Troy's great Gods gave ear thereto. 

[_The door of one of the huts on the rightopens, and the Women steal out severally, startled and afraid_. 

FIRST WOMAN. 

[_Strophe_ I. 

How say'st thou? Whither moves thy cry, Thy bitter cry? Behind our door We heard thy heavy heart outpourIts sorrow: and there shivered by Fear and a quick sob shakenFrom prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!

HECUBA. 

Child, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore. . . . 

SECOND WOMAN. 

 The ships, the ships awaken!

THIRD WOMAN. 

Dear God, what would they? OverseasBear me afar to strange cities?

HECUBA. 

Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these, Fears of the hope-forsaken. 

FIRST WOMAN. 

Awake, O daughters of affliction, wakeAnd learn your lots! Even now the Argives break Their camp for sailing!

HECUBA. 

Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not her Whom God hath maddened, lest the foeMock at her dreaming. Leave me clear From that one edge of woe. O Troy, my Troy, thou diest here Most lonely; and most lonely we The living wander forth from thee, And the dead leave thee wailing!

[_One of the huts on the left is now open, and the rest of the_ CHORUS_come out severally. Their number eventually amounts to fifteen_. 

FOURTH WOMAN. 

[_Antistrophe_ I. 

Out of the tent of the Greek king I steal, my Queen, with trembling breath: What means thy call? Not death; not death!They would not slay so low a thing!

FIFTH WOMAN. 

 O, 'tis the ship-folk cryingTo deck the galleys: and we part, we part!

HECUBA. 

Nay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart. 

FIFTH WOMAN. 

 My heart with dread is dying!

SIXTH WOMAN. 

An herald from the Greek hath come!

FIFTH WOMAN. 

How have they cast me, and to whomA bondmaid?

HECUBA. 

Peace, child: wait thy doom. Our lots are near the trying. 

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 agèd, where go I, A winter-frozen bee, a slaveDeath-shapen, as the stones that lie Hewn on a dead man's grave:The children of mine enemyTo foster, or keep watch beforeThe 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 changeBeneath 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. 

 God curseThat night and all the powers thereof!

ANOTHER. 

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

ANOTHER. 

God 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' rootsA lordly river, red with corn And burdened fruits. 

ANOTHER. 

Aye, that were next in my desire To Athens, where good spirits dwell. . . . 

ANOTHER. 

Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire That front the Tyrian's Citadel:First mother, she, of Sicily And mighty mountains: fame hath told Their crowns of goodness manifold. . . . 

ANOTHER. 

And, close beyond the narrowing sea, A sister land, where float enchanted Ionian summits, wave on wave, And Crathis of the burning tressesMakes red the happy vale, and blessesWith gold of fountains spirit-haunted Homes of true men and brave!

LEADER. 

But lo, who cometh: and his lips Grave with the weight of dooms unknown:A Herald from the Grecian ships. Swift comes he, hot-foot to be doneAnd finished. Ah, what bringeth heOf news or judgment? Slaves are we, Spoils that the Greek hath won!

[TALTHYBIUS[14], _followed by some Soldiers, enters from the left_. 

TALTHYBIUS. 

Thou know'st me, Hecuba. Often have I crossedThy plain with tidings from the Hellene host. 'Tis I, Talthybius. . . . Nay, of ancient useThou know'st me. And I come to bear thee news. 

HECUBA. 

 Ah me, 'tis here, 'tis here, Women of Troy, our long embosomed fear!

TALTHYBIUS. 

The lots are cast, if that it was ye feared. 

HECUBA. 

 What lord, what land. . . . Ah me, Phthia or Thebes, or sea-worn Thessaly?

TALTHYBIUS. 

Each hath her own. Ye go not in one herd. 

HECUBA. 

Say then what lot hath any? What of joyFalls, or can fall on any child of Troy?

TALTHYBIUS. 

I know: but make thy questions severally. 

HECUBA. 

 My stricken one must beStill first. Say how Cassandra's portion lies. 

TALTHYBIUS. 

Chosen from all for Agamemnon's prize!

HECUBA. 

 How, for his Spartan brideA tirewoman? For Helen's sister's pride?

TALTHYBIUS. 

Nay, nay: a bride herself, for the King's bed. 

HECUBA. 

The sainted of Apollo? And her own Prize that God promisedOut of the golden clouds, her virgin crown?. . . 

TALTHYBIUS. 

He loved her for that same strange holiness. 

HECUBA. 

 Daughter, away, away, Cast all away, The haunted Keys[15], the lonely stole's arrayThat kept thy body like a sacred place!

TALTHYBIUS. 

Is't not rare fortune that the King hath smiledOn such a maid?

HECUBA. 

 What of that other childYe reft from me but now?

TALTHYBIUS (_speaking with some constraint_). 

Polyxena? Or what child meanest thou?

HECUBA. 

The same. What man now hath her, or what doom?

TALTHYBIUS. 

She rests apart, to watch Achilles' tomb. 

HECUBA. 

To watch a tomb? My daughter? What is this?. . . Speak, Friend? What fashion of the laws of Greece?

TALTHYBIUS. 

Count thy maid happy! She hath naught of illTo fear. . . . 

HECUBA. 

 What meanest thou? She liveth still?

TALTHYBIUS. 

I mean, she hath one toil[16] that holds her freeFrom all toil else. 

HECUBA. 

 What of Andromache, Wife of mine iron-hearted Hector, where Journeyeth she?

TALTHYBIUS. 

Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, hath taken her. 

HECUBA. 

 And I, whose slave am I, The shaken head, the arm that creepeth by, Staff-crutchèd, like to fall?

TALTHYBIUS. 

Odysseus[17], Ithaca's king, hath thee for thrall. 

HECUBA. 

Beat, beat the crownless head:Rend the cheek till the tears run red!A lying man and a pitilessShall be lord of me, a heart full-flown With scorn of righteousness:O heart of a beast where law is none, Where all things change so that lust be fed, The oath and the deed, the right and the wrong, Even the hate of the forked tongue:Even the hate turns and is cold, False as the love that was false of old!

O Women of Troy, weep for me!Yea, I am gone: I am gone my ways. Mine is the crown of misery, The bitterest day of all our days. 

LEADER. 

Thy fate thou knowest, Queen: but I know notWhat lord of South or North has won my lot. 

TALTHYBIUS. 

Go, seek Cassandra, men! Make your best speed, That I may leave her with the King, and leadThese others to their divers lords. . . . Ha, there!What means that sudden light? Is it the flareOf torches?

[_Light is seen shining through the crevices of the second hut on theright. He moves towards it. _

 Would they fire their prison rooms, Or how, these dames of Troy?--'Fore God, the doomsAre known, and now they burn themselves and die[18]Rather than sail with us! How savagelyIn days like these a free neck chafes beneathIts burden!. . . Open! Open quick! Such deathWere bliss to them, it may be: but 'twill bringMuch wrath, and leave me shamed before the King!

HECUBA. 

There is no fire, no peril: 'tis my child, Cassandra, by the breath of God made wild. 

[_The door opens from within and_ CASSANDRA_enters, white-robed and wreathed like aPriestess, a great torch in her hand. Sheis singing softly to herself and does not seethe Herald or the scene before her. _

CASSANDRA. 

Lift, lift it high: [_Strophe_. Give it to mine hand! Lo, I bear a flame Unto God! I praise his name. I light with a burning brandThis sanctuary. Blessèd is he that shall wed, And blessèd, blessèd am I In Argos: a bride to lieWith a king in a king's bed. 

 Hail, O Hymen[19] red, O Torch that makest one! Weepest thou, Mother mine own?Surely thy cheek is paleWith tears, tears that wail For a land and a father dead. But I go garlanded:I am the Bride of Desire: Therefore my torch is borne-- Lo, the lifting of morn, Lo, the leaping of fire!--

For thee, O Hymen bright, For thee, O Moon of the Deep, So Law hath charged, for the light Of a maid's last sleep. 

Awake, O my feet, awake: [_Antistrophe_. Our father's hope is won! Dance as the dancing skies Over him, where he lies Happy beneath the sun!. . . Lo, the Ring that I make. . . . 

[_She makes a circle round her with a torch, and visions appear to her_. 

Apollo!. . . Ah, is it thou? O shrine in the laurels cold, I bear thee still, as of old, Mine incense! Be near to me now. 

[_She waves the torch as though bearing incense_. 

O Hymen, Hymen fleet: Quick torch that makest one!. . . How? Am I still alone?Laugh as I laugh, and twineIn the dance, O Mother mine: Dear feet, be near my feet!

Come, greet ye Hymen, greet Hymen with songs of pride:Sing to him loud and long, Cry, cry, when the song Faileth, for joy of the bride!

O Damsels girt in the gold Of Ilion, cry, cry ye, For him that is doomed of old To be lord of me!

LEADER. 

O hold the damsel, lest her trancèd feetLift her afar, Queen, toward the Hellene fleet!

HECUBA. 

O Fire, Fire, where men make marriagesSurely thou hast thy lot; but what are theseThou bringest flashing? Torches savage-wildAnd far from mine old dreams. --Alas, my child, How little dreamed I then of wars or redSpears of the Greek to lay thy bridal bed!Give me thy brand; it hath no holy blazeThus in thy frenzy flung. Nor all thy daysNor all thy griefs have changed them yet, nor learnedWisdom. --Ye women, bear the pine half burnedTo the chamber back; and let your drownèd eyesAnswer the music of these bridal cries!

[_She takes the torch and gives it to one of the women_. 

CASSANDRA. 

O Mother, fill mine hair with happy flowers, And speed me forth. Yea, if my spirit cowers, Drive me with wrath! So liveth Loxias[20], A bloodier bride than ever Helen wasGo I to Agamemnon, Lord most highOf Hellas!. . . I shall kill him, mother; IShall kill him, and lay waste his house with fireAs he laid ours. My brethren and my sireShall win again. . . . [21]

 (_Checking herself_) But part I must let be, And speak not. Not the axe that craveth me, And more than me; not the dark wanderingsOf mother-murder that my bridal brings, And all the House of Atreus down, down, down. . . . 

 Nay, I will show thee. Even now this townIs happier than the Greeks. I know the powerOf God is on me: but this little hour, Wilt thou but listen, I will hold him back!

 One love, one woman's beauty, o'er the trackOf hunted Helen, made their myriads fall. And this their King so wise[22], who ruleth all, What wrought he? Cast out Love that Hate might feed:Gave to his brother his own child, his seedOf gladness, that a woman fled, and fainTo fly for ever, should be turned again!

So the days waned, and armies on the shoreOf Simois stood and strove and died. Wherefore?No man had moved their landmarks; none had shookTheir wallèd towns. --And they whom Ares took, Had never seen their children: no wife cameWith gentle arms to shroud the limbs of themFor burial, in a strange and angry earthLaid dead. And there at home, the same long dearth:Women that lonely died, and aged menWaiting for sons that ne'er should turn again, Nor know their graves, nor pour drink-offerings, To still the unslakèd dust. These be the thingsThe conquering Greek hath won!

 But we--what pride, What praise of men were sweeter?--fighting diedTo save our people. And when war was redAround us, friends upbore the gentle deadHome, and dear women's heads about them woundWhite shrouds, and here they sleep in the old groundBelovèd. And the rest long days fought on, Dwelling with wives and children, not aloneAnd joyless, like these Greeks. 

 And Hector's woe, What is it? He is gone, and all men knowHis glory, and how true a heart he bore. It is the gift the Greek hath brought! Of yoreMen saw him not, nor knew him. Yea, and evenParis[23] hath loved withal a child of heaven:Else had his love but been as others are. Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!Yet if war come, there is a crown in deathFor her that striveth well and perishethUnstained: to die in evil were the stain!Therefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain, Nor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foeAnd mine by this my wooing is brought low. 

TALTHYBIUS (_at last breaking through the spell that has held him_). 

I swear, had not Apollo made thee mad, Not lightly hadst thou flung this shower of badBodings, to speed my General o'er the seas! 'Fore God, the wisdoms and the greatnessesOf seeming, are they hollow all, as thingsOf naught? This son of Atreus, of all kingsMost mighty, hath so bowed him to the loveOf this mad maid, and chooseth her aboveAll women! By the Gods, rude though I be, I would not touch her hand!

 Look thou; I seeThy lips are blind, and whatso words they speak, Praises of Troy or shamings of the Greek, I cast to the four winds! Walk at my sideIn peace!. . . And heaven content him of his bride!

 [_He moves as though to go, but turns to_ HECUBA, _and speaks moregently_. 

And thou shalt follow to Odysseus' hostWhen the word comes. 'Tis a wise queen[24] thou go'stTo serve, and gentle: so the Ithacans say. 

CASSANDRA (_seeing for the first time the Herald and all the scene_). 

How fierce a slave!. . . O Heralds, Heralds! Yea, Voices of Death[25]; and mists are over themOf dead men's anguish, like a diadem, These weak abhorred things that serve the hateOf kings and peoples!. . . 

 To Odysseus' gateMy mother goeth, say'st thou? Is God's wordAs naught, to me in silence ministered, That in this place she dies?[26]. . . (_To herself_) No more; no more!Why should I speak the shame of them, beforeThey come?. . . Little he knows, that hard-besetSpirit, what deeps of woe await him yet;Till all these tears of ours and harrowingsOf Troy, by his, shall be as golden things. Ten years behind ten years athwart his wayWaiting: and home, lost and unfriended. . . . 

 Nay:Why should Odysseus' labours vex my breath?On; hasten; guide me to the house of Death, To lie beside my bridegroom!. . . 

 Thou Greek King, Who deem'st thy fortune now so high a thing, Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see, In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee:And with thee, with thee . . . There, where yawneth plainA rift of the hills, raging with winter rain, Dead . . . And out-cast . . . And naked. . . . It is IBeside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry, And ravin on God's chosen!

[_She clasps her hands to her brow and feels thewreaths. _

 O, ye wreaths!Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathesAbout me, shapes of joyance mystical, Begone! I have forgot the festival, Forgot the joy. Begone! I tear ye, so, From off me!. . . Out on the swift winds they go. With flesh still clean I give them back to thee, Still white, O God, O light that leadest me!

[_Turning upon the Herald. 

Where lies the galley? Whither shall I tread?See that your watch be set, your sail be spreadThe wind comes quick[27]! Three Powers--mark me, thou!--There be in Hell, and one walks with thee now! Mother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweetCity, my earth-clad brethren, and thou greatSire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead, And I am with you, yea, with crowned headI come, and shining from the fires that feedOn these that slay us now, and all their seed!

[_She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers_ Hecuba, _afterwaiting for an instant motionless, falls to the ground. _

LEADER OF CHORUS. 

The Queen, ye Watchers! See, she falls, she falls, Rigid without a word! O sorry thralls, Too late! And will ye leave her downstricken, A woman, and so old? Raise her again!

[_Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses their aid and speaks withoutrising. _

HECUBA. 

Let lie . . . The love we seek not is no love. . . . This ruined body! Is the fall thereofToo deep for all that now is over meOf anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be?Ye Gods. . . . Alas! Why call on things so weakFor aid? Yet there is something that doth seek, Crying, for God, when one of us hath woe. O, I will think of things gone long agoAnd weave them to a song, like one more tearIn the heart of misery. . . . All kings we were;And I must wed a king. And sons I broughtMy lord King, many sons . . . Nay, that were naught;But high strong princes, of all Troy the best. Hellas nor Troäs nor the garnered EastHeld such a mother! And all these things beneathThe Argive spear I saw cast down in death, And shore these tresses at the dead men's feet. Yea, and the gardener of my garden great, It was not any noise of him nor taleI wept for; these eyes saw him, when the paleWas broke, and there at the altar Priam fellMurdered, and round him all his citadelSacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold, Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold, 'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone;And no hope left, that I shall look uponTheir faces any more, nor they on mine. And now my feet tread on the utmost line:An old, old slave-woman, I pass belowMine enemies' gates; and whatso task they knowFor this age basest, shall be mine; the door, Bowing, to shut and open. . . . I that boreHector!. . . And meal to grind, and this racked headBend to the stones after a royal bed;Tom rags about me, aye, and under themTom flesh; 'twill make a woman sick for shame!Woe's me; and all that one man's arms might holdOne woman, what long seas have o'er me rolledAnd roll for ever!. . . O my child, whose whiteSoul laughed amid the laughter of God's light, Cassandra, what hands and how strange a dayHave loosed thy zone! And thou, Polyxena, Where art thou? And my sons? Not any seedOf man nor woman now shall help my need. Why raise me any more? What hope have ITo hold me? Take this slave that once trod highIn Ilion; cast her on her bed of clayRock-pillowed, to lie down, and pass awayWasted with tears. And whatso man they callHappy, believe not ere the last day fall!

 * * * * *

CHORUS[28]. [_Strophe. _

 O Muse, be near me now, and make A strange song for Ilion's sake, Till a tone of tears be about mine ears And out of my lips a music break For Troy, Troy, and the end of the years: When the wheels of the Greek above me pressed, And the mighty horse-hoofs beat my breast; And all around were the Argive spearsA towering Steed of golden rein-- O gold without, dark steel within!--Ramped in our gates; and all the plain Lay silent where the Greeks had been. And a cry broke from all the folkGathered above on Ilion's rock:"Up, up, O fear is over now! To Pallas, who hath saved us living, To Pallas bear this victory-vow!"Then rose the old man from his room, The merry damsel left her loom, And each bound death about his brow With minstrelsy and high thanksgiving!

 [_Antistrophe. _

 O, swift were all in Troy that day, And girt them to the portal-way, Marvelling at that mountain Thing Smooth-carven, where the Argives lay, And wrath, and Ilion's vanquishing: Meet gift for her that spareth not[29], Heaven's yokeless Rider. Up they brought Through the steep gates her offering: Like some dark ship that climbs the shore On straining cables, up, where stood Her marble throne, her hallowed floor, Who lusted for her people's blood. 

A very weariness of joyFell with the evening over Troy:And lutes of Afric mingled there With Phrygian songs: and many a maiden, With white feet glancing light as air, Made happy music through the gloom:And fires on many an inward roomAll night broad-flashing, flung their glare On laughing eyes and slumber-laden. 

A MAIDEN. 

I was among the dancers there To Artemis[30], and glorying sangHer of the Hills, the Maid most fair, Daughter of Zeus: and, lo, there rangA shout out of the dark, and fell Deathlike from street to street, and madeA silence in the citadel: And a child cried, as if afraid, And hid him in his mother's veil. Then stalked the Slayer from his den, The hand of Pallas served her well! O blood, blood of Troy was deep About the streets and altars then:And in the wedded rooms of sleep, Lo, the desolate dark alone, And headless things, men stumbled on. 

And forth, lo, the women go, The crown of War, the crown of Woe, To bear the children of the foe And weep, weep, for Ilion!

 * * * * *

[_As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching from the town, ladenwith spoils. On it sits a mourning Woman with a child in her arms. _

LEADER. 

 Lo, yonder on the heapèd crest Of a Greek wain, Andromachê[31], As one that o'er an unknown seaTosseth; and on her wave-borne breastHer loved one clingeth, Hector's child, Astyanax. . . . O most forlorn Of women, whither go'st thou, borne'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piledSpoils of the dead, and pageantry Of them that hunted Ilion down? Aye, richly thy new lord shall crownThe mountain shrines of Thessaly!

ANDROMACHE [_Strophe I. _

Forth to the Greek I go, Driven as a beast is driven. 

HEC. Woe, woe!

AND. Nay, mine is woe: Woe to none other given, And the song and the crown therefor!

HEC. O Zeus!

AND. He hates thee sore!

HEC. Children!

AND. No more, no more To aid thee: their strife is striven!

HECUBA. [_Antistrophe I. _

 Troy, Troy is gone!

AND. Yea, and her treasure parted. 

HEC. Gone, gone, mine own Children, the noble-hearted!

AND. Sing sorrow. . . . 

HEC. For me, for me!

AND. Sing for the Great City, That falleth, falleth to be A shadow, a fire departed. 

ANDROMACHE. 

[_Strophe 2. _

Come to me, O my lover!

HEC. The dark shroudeth him over, My flesh, woman, not thine, not thine!

AND. Make of thine arms my cover!

HECUBA. 

[_Antistrophe 2. _

O thou whose wound was deepest, Thou that my children keepest, Priam, Priam, O age-worn King, Gather me where thou sleepest. 

ANDROMACHE (_her hands upon her heart_). 

[_Strophe 3. _

O here is the deep of desire, HEC. (How? And is this not woe?)

AND. For a city burned with fire;

HEC. (It beateth, blow on blow. )

AND. God's wrath for Paris, thy son, that he died not long ago:

 Who sold for his evil love Troy and the towers thereof: Therefore the dead men lie Naked, beneath the eye Of Pallas, and vultures croak And flap for joy: So Love hath laid his yoke On the neck of Troy!

HECUBA. 

[_Antistrophe 3. _

O mine own land, my home, AND. (I weep for thee, left forlorn, )

HEC. See'st thou what end is come?

AND. (And the house where my babes were born. )

HEC. A desolate Mother we leave, O children, a City of scorn:

 Even as the sound of a song[32] Left by the way, but long Remembered, a tune of tears Falling where no man hears, In the old house, as rain, For things loved of yore: But the dead hath lost his pain And weeps no more. 

LEADER. 

How sweet are tears to them in bitter stress, And sorrow, and all the songs of heaviness. 

ANDROMACHE[33]. 

Mother of him of old, whose mighty spearSmote Greeks like chaff, see'st thou what things are here?

HECUBA. 

I see God's hand, that buildeth a great crownFor littleness, and hath cast the mighty down. 

ANDROMACHE. 

I and my babe are driven among the drovesOf plundered cattle. O, when fortune movesSo swift, the high heart like a slave beats low. 

HECUBA. 

'Tis fearful to be helpless. Men but nowHave taken Cassandra, and I strove in vain. 

ANDROMACHE. 

Ah, woe is me; hath Ajax come again?But other evil yet is at thy gate. 

HECUBA. 

Nay, Daughter, beyond number, beyond weightMy evils are! Doom raceth against doom. 

ANDROMACHE. 

Polyxena across Achilles' tombLies slain, a gift flung to the dreamless dead. 

HECUBA. 

My sorrow!. . . 'Tis but what Talthybius said:So plain a riddle, and I read it not. 

ANDROMACHE. 

I saw her lie, and stayed this chariot;And raiment wrapt on her dead limbs, and beatMy breast for her. 

HECUBA (_to herself_). 

 O the foul sin of it!The wickedness! My child. My child! AgainI cry to thee. How cruelly art thou slain!

ANDROMACHE. 

She hath died her death, and howso dark it be, Her death is sweeter than my misery. 

HECUBA. 

Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cupOf Death is empty, and Life hath always hope. 

ANDROMACHE. 

O Mother, having ears, hear thou this wordFear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirredWith joy. To die is only not to be;And better to be dead than grievouslyLiving. They have no pain, they ponder notTheir own wrong. But the living that is broughtFrom joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam, As in a desert, lost, from its old home. Thy daughter lieth now as one unborn, Dead, and naught knowing of the lust and scornThat slew her. And I . . . Long since I drew my bowStraight at the heart of good fame; and I knowMy shaft hit; and for that am I the moreFallen from peace. All that men praise us for, I loved for Hector's sake, and sought to win. I knew that alway, be there hurt thereinOr utter innocence, to roam abroadHath ill report for women; so I trodDown the desire thereof, and walked my wayIn mine own garden. And light words and gayParley of women never passed my door. The thoughts of mine own heart . . . I craved no more. . . . Spoke with me, and I was happy. ConstantlyI brought fair silence and a tranquil eyeFor Hector's greeting, and watched well the wayOf living, where to guide and where obey. And, lo! some rumour of this peace, being goneForth to the Greek, hath cursed me. Achilles' son, So soon as I was taken, for his thrallChose me. I shall do service in the hallOf them that slew. . . . How? Shall I thrust asideHector's beloved face, and open wideMy heart to this new lord? Oh, I should standA traitor to the dead! And if my handAnd flesh shrink from him . . . Lo, wrath and despiteO'er all the house, and I a slave!

 One night, One night . . . Aye, men have said it . . . Maketh tameA woman in a man's arms. . . . O shame, shame!What woman's lips can so forswear her dead, And give strange kisses in another's bed?Why, not a dumb beast, not a colt will runIn the yoke untroubled, when her mate is gone--A thing not in God's image, dull, unmovedOf reason. O my Hector! best beloved, That, being mine, wast all in all to me, My prince, my wise one, O my majestyOf valiance! No man's touch had ever comeNear me, when thou from out my father's homeDidst lead me and make me thine. . . . And thou art dead, And I war-flung to slavery and the breadOf shame in Hellas, over bitter seas! What knoweth she of evils like to these, That dead Polyxena, thou weepest for?There liveth not in my life any moreThe hope that others have. Nor will I tellThe lie to mine own heart, that aught is wellOr shall be well. . . . Yet, O, to dream were sweet!

LEADER. 

Thy feet have trod the pathway of my feet, And thy clear sorrow teacheth me mine own. 

HECUBA. 

Lo, yonder ships: I ne'er set foot on one, But tales and pictures tell, when over themBreaketh a storm not all too strong to stem, Each man strives hard, the tiller gripped, the mastManned, the hull baled, to face it: till at lastToo strong breaks the o'erwhelming sea: lo, thenThey cease, and yield them up as broken menTo fate and the wild waters. Even soI in my many sorrows bear me low, Nor curse, nor strive that other things may be. The great wave rolled from God hath conquered me. But, O, let Hector and the fates that fellOn Hector, sleep. Weep for him ne'er so well, Thy weeping shall not wake him. Honour thouThe new lord that is set above thee now, And make of thine own gentle pietyA prize to lure his heart. So shalt thou beA strength to them that love us, and--God knows, It may be--rear this babe among his foes, My Hector's child, to manhood and great aidFor Ilion. So her stones may yet be laidOne on another, if God will, and wroughtAgain to a city! Ah, how thought to thoughtStill beckons!. . . But what minion of the GreekIs this that cometh, with new words to speak?

[_Enter_ TALTHYBIUS _with a band of Soldiers. He comes forward slowlyand with evident disquiet. _

TALTHYBIUS. 

Spouse of the noblest heart that beat in Troy, Andromache, hate me not! 'Tis not in joyI tell thee. But the people and the KingsHave with one voice. . . . 

ANDROMACHE. 

 What is it? Evil thingsAre on thy lips!

TALTHYBIUS. 

 Tis ordered, this child. . . . Oh, How can I tell her of it?

ANDROMACHE. 

 Doth he not goWith me, to the same master?

TALTHYBIUS. 

 There is noneIn Greece, shall e'er be master of thy son. 

ANDROMACHE. 

How? Will they leave him here to build againThe wreck?. . . 

TALTHYBIUS. I know not how to tell thee plain!

ANDROMACHE. 

Thou hast a gentle heart . . . If it be ill, And not good, news thou hidest!

TALTHYBIUS. 

 'Tis their willThy son shall die. . . . The whole vile thing is saidNow!

ANDROMACHE. Oh, I could have borne mine enemy's bed!

TALTHYBIUS. 

And speaking in the council of the hostOdysseus hath prevailed--

ANDROMACHE. 

 O lost! lost! lost!. . . Forgive me! It is not easy. . . . 

TALTHYBIUS. 

 . . . That the sonOf one so perilous be not fostered onTo manhood--

ANDROMACHE. 

 God; may his own counsel fallOn his own sons!

TALTHYBIUS. 

 . . . But from this crested wallOf Troy be dashed, and die. . . . Nay, let the thingBe done. Thou shalt be wiser so. Nor clingSo fiercely to him. Suffer as a braveWoman in bitter pain; nor think to haveStrength which thou hast not. Look about thee here!Canst thou see help, or refuge anywhere?Thy land is fallen and thy lord, and thouA prisoner and alone, one woman; howCanst battle against us? For thine own goodI would not have thee strive, nor make ill bloodAnd shame about thee. . . . Ah, nor move thy lipsIn silence there, to cast upon the shipsThy curse! One word of evil to the host, This babe shall have no burial, but be tossedNaked. . . . Ah, peace! And bear as best thou may, War's fortune. So thou shalt not go thy wayLeaving this child unburied; nor the GreekBe stern against thee, if thy heart be meek!

ANDROMACHE (_to the child_). 

Go, die, my best-beloved, my cherished one, In fierce men's hands, leaving me here alone. Thy father was too valiant; that is whyThey slay thee! Other children, like to die, Might have been spared for that. But on thy headHis good is turned to evil. 

 O thou bedAnd bridal; O the joining of the hand, That led me long ago to Hector's landTo bear, O not a lamb for Grecian swordsTo slaughter, but a Prince o'er all the hordesEnthroned of wide-flung Asia. . . . Weepest thou?Nay, why, my little one? Thou canst not know. And Father will not come; he will not come;Not once, the great spear flashing, and the tombRiven to set thee free! Not one of allHis brethren, nor the might of Ilion's wall. How shall it be? One horrible spring . . . Deep, deepDown. And thy neck. . . . Ah God, so cometh sleep!. . . And none to pity thee!. . . Thou little thingThat curlest in my arms, what sweet scents clingAll round thy neck! Belovèd; can it beAll nothing, that this bosom cradled theeAnd fostered; all the weary nights, wherethroughI watched upon thy sickness, till I grewWasted with watching? Kiss me. This one time;Not ever again. Put up thine arms, and climbAbout my neck: now, kiss me, lips to lips. . . . O, ye have found an anguish that outstripsAll tortures of the East, ye gentle Greeks!Why will ye slay this innocent, that seeksNo wrong?. . . O Helen, Helen, thou ill treeThat Tyndareus planted, who shall deem of theeAs child of Zeus? O, thou hast drawn thy breathFrom many fathers, Madness, Hate, red Death, And every rotting poison of the sky!Zeus knows thee not, thou vampire, draining dry. Greece and the world! God hate thee and destroy, That with those beautiful eyes hast blasted Troy, And made the far-famed plains a waste withal. Quick! take him: drag him: cast him from the wall, If cast ye will! Tear him, ye beasts, be swift!God hath undone me, and I cannot liftOne hand, one hand, to save my child from death. . . . O, hide my head for shame: fling me beneathYour galleys' benches!. . . 

[_She swoons: then half-rising. _

 Quick: I must begoneTo the bridal. . . . I have lost my child, my own!

[_The Soldiers close round her. _

LEADER. 

O Troy ill-starred; for one strange woman, oneAbhorrèd kiss, how are thine hosts undone!

TALTHYBIUS (_bending over_ ANDROMACHE _and graduallytaking the Child from her_). 

Come, Child: let be that clasp of love Outwearied! Walk thy ways with me, Up to the crested tower, above Thy father's wall. . . . Where they decreeThy soul shall perish. --Hold him: hold!-- Would God some other man might plyThese charges, one of duller mould, And nearer to the iron than I!

HECUBA. 

O Child, they rob us of our own, Child of my Mighty One outworn:Ours, ours thou art!--Can aught be done Of deeds, can aught of pain be borne, To aid thee?--Lo, this beaten head, This bleeding bosom! These I spreadAs gifts to thee. I can thus much. Woe, woe for Troy, and woe for thee!What fall yet lacketh, ere we touch The last dead deep of misery?

[_The Child, who has started back from_ TALTHYBIUS, _is taken up by oneof the Soldiers and borne back towards the city, while_ ANDROMACHE _isset again on the Chariot and driven off towards the ships. _ TALTHYBIUS_goes with the Child. _

 * * * * *

CHORUS. 

[_Strophe I. _

In Salamis, filled with the foaming[34] Of billows and murmur of bees, Old Telamon stayed from his roaming, Long ago, on a throne of the seas;Looking out on the hills olive-laden, Enchanted, where first from the earthThe grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden Athena had birth;A soft grey crown for a city Belovèd a City of Light:Yet he rested not there, nor had pity, But went forth in his might, Where Heracles wandered, the lonely Bow-bearer, and lent him his handsFor the wrecking of one land only, Of Ilion, Ilion only, Most hated of lands!

[_Antistrophe_ I. 

Of the bravest of Hellas he made him A ship-folk, in wrath for the Steeds, And sailed the wide waters, and stayed him At last amid Simoïs' reeds;And the oars beat slow in the river, And the long ropes held in the strand, And he felt for his bow and his quiver, The wrath of his hand. And the old king died; and the towers That Phoebus had builded did fall, And his wrath, as a flame that devours, Ran red over all;And the fields and the woodlands lay blasted, Long ago. Yea, twice hath the SireUplifted his hand and downcast itOn the wall of the Dardan, downcast it As a sword and as fire. 

[Strophe 2. 

In vain, all in vain, O thou 'mid the wine-jars golden That movest in delicate joy, Ganymêdês, child of Troy, The lips of the Highest drain The cup in thine hand upholden:And thy mother, thy mother that bore thee, Is wasted with fire and torn; And the voice of her shores is heard, Wild, as the voice of a bird, For lovers and children before thee Crying, and mothers outworn. And the pools of thy bathing[35] are perished, And the wind-strewn ways of thy feet:Yet thy face as aforetime is cherishedOf Zeus, and the breath of it sweet;Yea, the beauty of Calm is upon itIn houses at rest and afar. But thy land, He hath wrecked and o'erthrown itIn the wailing of war. 

[_Antistrophe_ 2. 

O Love, ancient Love, Of old to the Dardan given;Love of the Lords of the Sky;How didst thou lift us highIn Ilion, yea, and aboveAll cities, as wed with heaven!For Zeus--O leave it unspoken:But alas for the love of the Morn;Morn of the milk-white wing, The gentle, the earth-loving, That shineth on battlements brokenIn Troy, and a people forlorn! And, lo, in her bowers Tithônus, Our brother, yet sleeps as of old:O, she too hath loved us and known us, And the Steeds of her star, flashing gold, Stooped hither and bore him above us;Then blessed we the Gods in our joy. But all that made them to love usHath perished from Troy. 

 * * * * *

[_As the song ceases, the King_ MENELAUS _enters, richly armed andfollowed by a bodyguard of Soldiers. He is a prey to violent andconflicting emotions. _

MENELAUS[36]. 

How bright the face of heaven, and how sweetThe air this day, that layeth at my feetThe woman that I. . . . Nay: 'twas not for herI came. 'Twas for the man, the cozenerAnd thief, that ate with me and stole awayMy bride. But Paris lieth, this long day, By God's grace, under the horse-hoofs of the Greek, And round him all his land. And now I seek. . . . Curse her! I scarce can speak the name she bears, That was my wife. Here with the prisonersThey keep her, in these huts, among the hordesOf numbered slaves. --The host whose labouring swordsWon her, have given her up to me, to fillMy pleasure; perchance kill her, or not kill, But lead her home. --Methinks I have foregoneThe slaying of Helen here in Ilion. . . . Over the long seas I will bear her back, And there, there, cast her out to whatso wrackOf angry death they may devise, who knowTheir dearest dead for her in Ilion. --Ho!Ye soldiers! Up into the chambers whereShe croucheth! Grip the long blood-reeking hair, And drag her to mine eyes . . . [_Controlling himself_. And when there comeFair breezes, my long ships shall bear her home. [_The Soldiers go to force open the door of the second hut on the left_. 

HECUBA. 

Thou deep Base of the World[37], and thou high ThroneAbove the World, whoe'er thou art, unknownAnd hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be, Or Reason of our Reason; God, to theeI lift my praise, seeing the silent roadThat bringeth justice ere the end be trodTo all that breathes and dies. 

MENELAUS (_turning_). 

 Ha! who is thereThat prayeth heaven, and in so strange a prayer?

HECUBA. 

I bless thee, Menelaus, I bless thee, If thou wilt slay her! Only fear to seeHer visage, lest she snare thee and thou fall!She snareth strong men's eyes; she snareth tallCities; and fire from out her eateth upHouses. Such magic hath she, as a cupOf death!. . . Do I not know her? Yea, and thou, And these that lie around, do they not know? [_The Soldiers return from the hut and stand aside to let_ HELEN _passbetween them. She comes through them, gentle and unafraid; there is nodisorder in her raiment_. 

HELEN. 

King Menelaus, thy first deed might makeA woman fear. Into my chamber brake Thine armèd men, and lead me wrathfully. Methinks, almost, I know thou hatest me. Yet I would ask thee, what decree is goneForth for my life or death?

MENELAUS (_struggling with his emotion_). There was not oneThat scrupled for thee. All, all with one willGave thee to me, whom thou hast wronged, to kill!

HELEN. 

And is it granted that I speak, or no, In answer to them ere I die, to showI die most wronged and innocent?

MENELAUS. 

 I seekTo kill thee, woman; not to hear thee speak!

HECUBA. 

O hear her! She must never die unheard, King Menelaus! And give me the wordTo speak in answer! All the wrong she wroughtAway from thee, in Troy, thou knowest not. The whole tale set together is a deathToo sure; she shall not 'scape thee!

MENELAUS. 

 'Tis but breathAnd time. For thy sake, Hecuba, if she needTo speak, I grant the prayer. I have no heedNor mercy--let her know it well--for her!

HELEN. 

It may be that, how false or true soe'erThou deem me, I shall win no word from thee. So sore thou holdest me thine enemy. Yet I will take what words I think thy heartHoldeth of anger: and in even partSet my wrong and thy wrong, and all that fell. 

 [_Pointing to_ HECUBA. 

 She cometh first, who bare the seed and wellOf springing sorrow, when to life she broughtParis: and that old King, who quenched notQuick in the spark, ere yet he woke to slay, The fire-brand's image[38]. --But enough: a dayCame, and this Paris judged beneath the treesThree Crowns of Life[39], three diverse Goddesses. The gift of Pallas was of War, to leadHis East in conquering battles, and make bleedThe hearths of Hellas. Hera held a Throne--If majesties he craved--to reign aloneFrom Phrygia to the last realm of the West. And Cypris, if he deemed her loveliest, Beyond all heaven, made dreams about my faceAnd for her grace gave me. And, lo! her graceWas judged the fairest, and she stood aboveThose twain. --Thus was I loved, and thus my loveHath holpen Hellas. No fierce Eastern crownIs o'er your lands, no spear hath cast them down. O, it was well for Hellas! But for meMost ill; caught up and sold across the sea For this my beauty; yea, dishonourèdFor that which else had been about my headA crown of honour. . . . Ah, I see thy thought;The first plain deed, 'tis that I answer not, How in the dark out of thy house I fled. . . . There came the Seed of Fire, this woman's seed;Came--O, a Goddess great walked with him then--This Alexander, Breaker-down-of-Men, This Paris[40], Strength-is-with-him; whom thou, whom--O false and light of heart--thou in thy roomDidst leave, and spreadest sail for Cretan seas, Far, far from me!. . . And yet, how strange it is!I ask not thee; I ask my own sad thought, What was there in my heart, that I forgotMy home and land and all I loved, to flyWith a strange man? Surely it was not I, But Cypris, there! Lay thou thy rod on her, And be more high than Zeus and bitterer, Who o'er all other spirits hath his throne, But knows her chain must bind him. My wrong doneHath its own pardon. . . . 

 One word yet thou hast, Methinks, of righteous seeming. When at lastThe earth for Paris oped and all was o'er, And her strange magic bound my feet no more, Why kept I still his house, why fled not ITo the Argive ships?. . . Ah, how I strove to fly!The old Gate-Warden[41] could have told thee all, My husband, and the watchers from the wall;It was not once they took me, with the ropeTied, and this body swung in the air, to gropeIts way toward thee, from that dim battlement. Ah, husband still, how shall thy hand be bentTo slay me? Nay, if Right be come at last, What shalt thou bring but comfort for pains past, And harbour for a woman storm-driven:A woman borne away by violent men:And this one birthright of my beauty, thisThat might have been my glory, lo, it isA stamp that God hath burned, of slavery! Alas! and if thou cravest still to beAs one set above gods, inviolate, 'Tis but a fruitless longing holds thee yet. 

LEADER. 

O Queen, think of thy children and thy land, And break her spell! The sweet soft speech, the handAnd heart so fell: it maketh me afraid. 

HECUBA. 

Meseems her goddesses first cry mine aidAgainst these lying lips!. . . Not Hera, nay, Nor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay, To barter their own folk, Argos and braveAthens, to be trod down, the Phrygian's slave, All for vain glory and a shepherd's prizeOn Ida! Wherefore should great Hera's eyesSo hunger to be fair? She doth not useTo seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus. And maiden Pallas . . . Did some strange god's faceBeguile her, that she craved for loveliness, Who chose from God one virgin gift aboveAll gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love? Ah, deck not out thine own heart's evil springsBy making spirits of heaven as brutish thingsAnd cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all! And Cypris must take ship-fantastical!Sail with my son and enter at the gateTo seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sateAt peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and allAmyclae with thee, under Ilion's wall. My son was passing beautiful, beyondHis peers; and thine own heart, that saw and connedHis face, became a spirit enchanting thee. For all wild things that in mortality Have being, are Aphroditê; and the nameShe bears in heaven is born and writ of them. Thou sawest him in gold and orient vestShining, and lo, a fire about thy breastLeapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things, Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wingsWere come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolledThe Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold, To steep thine arms and splash the towers! How small, How cold that day was Menelaus' hall! Enough of that. It was by force my sonTook thee, thou sayst, and striving. . . . Yet not oneIn Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayerRang from thy rooms that night. . . . Castor was thereTo hear thee, and his brother: both true men, Not yet among the stars! And after, whenThou camest here to Troy, and in thy trackArgos and all its anguish and the rackOf war--Ah God!--perchance men told thee 'NowThe Greek prevails in battle': then wouldst thouPraise Menelaus, that my son might smart, Striving with that old image in a heartUncertain still. Then Troy had victories:And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyesWatched Fortune's eyes, to follow hot where sheLed first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty. Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fallFar, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall!Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay, Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden wayOf the sword, that any woman honest-souledHad sought long since, loving her lord of old? Often and often did I charge thee; 'Go, My daughter; go thy ways. My sons will knowNew loves. I will give aid, and steal thee pastThe Argive watch. O give us peace at last, Us and our foes!' But out thy spirit criedAs at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy prideIn Alexander's house, and O, 'twas sweetTo hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet. They were great things to thee!. . . And comest thou nowForth, and hast decked thy bosom and thy brow, And breathest with thy lord the same blue air, Thou evil heart? Low, low, with ravaged hair, Rent raiment, and flesh shuddering, and within--O shame at last, not glory for thy sin;So face him if thou canst!. . . Lo, I have done. Be true, O King; let Hellas bear her crownOf Justice. Slay this woman, and upraiseThe law for evermore: she that betraysHer husband's bed, let her be judged and die. 

LEADER. 

Be strong, O King; give judgment worthilyFor thee and thy great house. Shake off thy longReproach; not weak, but iron against the wrong!

MENELAUS. 

Thy thought doth walk with mine in one intent. 'Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she wentForth to a stranger's bed. And all her fairTale of enchantment, 'tis a thing of air!. . . 

[_Turning furiously upon_ HELEN. 

Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yetWith stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debtBe paid at last. And ere this night is o'erThy dead face shall dishonour me no more!

HELEN (_kneeling before him and embracing him_). 

Behold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees;Lay not upon my head the phantasiesOf Heaven. Remember all, and slay me not!

HECUBA. 

Remember them she murdered, them that foughtBeside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!

MENELAUS. 

Peace, agèd woman, peace! 'Tis not for her;She is as naught to me. (_To the Soldiers_) . . . March on before, Ye ministers, and tend her to the shore . . . And have some chambered galley set for her, Where she may sail the seas. 

HECUBA. 

 If thou be there, I charge thee, let not her set foot therein!

MENELAUS. 

How? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?

HECUBA. 

A lover once, will alway love again. 

MENELAUS. 

If that he loved be evil, he will fainHate it!. . . Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done. Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own. . . . Thou counsellest very well. . . . And when we comeTo Argos, then . . . O then some pitiless doomWell-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bindOnce for all time the law on womankindOf faithfulness!. . . 'Twill be no easy thing, God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall flingA chill on the dreams of women, though they beWilder of wing and loathèd more than she!

[_Exit, following_ HELEN, _who is escorted by the Soldiers_. 

 * * * * *

CHORUS[42]. 

_Some Women_. 

[_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 wreathèd 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 thronèd in the sky, Thronèd in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die, Passeth in the wind and the flare?

_A Woman. _

 [_Strophe 2. _

Dear one, O husband mine, Thou in the dim dominionsDriftest with waterless lips, Unburied; and me the shipsShall bear o'er the bitter brine, Storm-birds upon angry pinions, Where the towers of the Giants[43] shineO'er Argos cloudily, And the riders ride by the sea. 

_Others. _

And children still in the Gate Crowd and cry, A multitude desolate, Voices that float and wait As the tears run dry:'Mother, alone on the shore 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 broodsOver the sundered floodsOf 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 whiteAnd jagged, with wild sea-lightAnd crashing of oar-blades, come, O thunder of God, and slay us:While our tears are wet for home, While out in the storm go we, Slaves of our enemy!

_Others. _

And, God, 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 shore, Nor tombs where her fathers be, Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling, Nor the towers of PitanêFor her face was a dark desireUpon Greece, and shame like fire, And her dead are welling, welling, From red Simoïs 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 hourHave hurled to death from Ilion's tower. 

TALTHYBIUS. 

One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet, Lapping the wave, to gather the last freightOf Pyrrhus' spoils for Thessaly. The chiefHimself long since hath parted, much in grief For Pêleus' sake, his grandsire, whom, men say, Acastus, Pelias' son, in war arrayHath driven to exile. Loath enough beforeWas he to linger, and now goes the moreIn haste, bearing Andromache, his prize. 'Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes, Weeping her fatherland, as o'er the waveShe gazed, and speaking words to Hector's grave. Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be doneFor burial of this babe, thine Hector's son, That now from Ilion's tower is fallen and dead. And, lo! this great bronze-fronted shield, the dreadOf many a Greek, that Hector held in fray, O never in God's name--so did she pray-- Be this borne forth to hang in Pêleus' hallOr that dark bridal chamber, that the wallMay 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 handsShe bade me lay him, to be swathed in bandsOf death and garments, such as rest to theeIn these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that sheHath gone her ways, and, for her master's haste, May no more fold the babe unto his rest. Howbeit, so soon as he is garlandedAnd robed, we will heap earth above his headAnd lift our sails. . . . See all be swiftly done, As thou art bidden. I have saved thee oneLabour. For as I passed Scamander's streamHard by, I let the waters run on him, And cleansed his wounds. --See, I will go forth nowAnd break the hard earth for his grave: so thouAnd I will haste together, to set freeOur 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. 

Set the great orb of Hector's shield to lieHere on the ground. 'Tis bitter that mine eyeShould see it. . . . O ye Argives, was your spearKeen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fearThis babe? 'Twas a strange murder for brave men!For fear this babe some day might raise againHis fallen land! Had ye so little pride?While Hector fought, and thousands at his side, Ye smote us, and we perished; and now, now, When all are dead and Ilion lieth low, Ye dread this innocent! I deem it notWisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought. . . . Ah, what a death hath found thee, little one!Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou knownStrong youth and love and all the majestyOf godlike kings, then had we spoken of theeAs of one blessed . . . Could in any wiseThese days know blessedness. But now thine eyesHave seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soulNo knowledge had nor usage of the wholeRich life that lapt thee round. . . . Poor little child!Was it our ancient wall, the circuit piledBy loving Gods, so savagely hath rentThy curls, these little flowers innocentThat were thy mother's garden, where she laidHer kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayedGrins white above--Ah heaven, I will not see! Ye tender arms, the same dear mould have yeAs his; how from the shoulder loose ye dropAnd weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hopeAnd closed for ever! What false words ye saidAt daybreak, when he crept into my bed, Called me kind names, and promised: 'Grandmother, When thou art dead, I will cut close my hairAnd lead out all the captains to ride byThy tomb. ' Why didst thou cheat me so? 'Tis I, Old, homeless, childless, that for thee must shedCold tears, so young, so miserably dead. Dear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet, The nursing in my lap; and O, the sweetFalling asleep together! All is gone. How should a poet carve the funeral stoneTo tell thy story true? 'There lieth hereA babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fearSlew him. ' Aye, Greece will bless the tale it tells! Child, they have left thee beggared of all elseIn Hector's house; but one thing shalt thou keep, This war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep. Alas, thou guardian true of Hector's fairLeft arm, how art thou masterless! And thereI see his handgrip printed on thy hold;And deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolledIn battle from the brows and beard of him, Drop after drop, are writ about thy rim. Go, bring them--such poor garments hazardousAs these days leave. God hath not granted usWherewith to make much pride. But all I can, I give thee, Child of Troy. --O vain is man, Who glorieth in his joy and hath no fears:While to and fro the chances of the yearsDance like an idiot in the wind! And noneBy any strength hath his own fortune won. 

[_During these lines several Women are seen approaching with garlandsand raiment in their hands_. 

LEADER. 

Lo these, who bear thee raiment harvestedFrom Ilion's slain, to fold upon the dead. 

[_During the following scene_ HECUBA _gradually takes the garments andwraps them about the Child_. 

HECUBA. 

O not in pride for speeding of the carBeyond thy peers, not for the shaft of warTrue aimed, as Phrygians use; not any prizeOf joy for thee, nor splendour in men's eyes, Thy father's mother lays these offeringsAbout thee, from the many fragrant thingsThat were all thine of old. But now no more. One woman, loathed of God, hath broke the doorAnd robbed thy treasure-house, and thy warm breathMade cold, and trod thy people down to death!

CHORUS. _Some Women_. 

Deep in the heart of me I feel thine hand, Mother: and is it heDead here, our prince to be, And lord of the land?

HECUBA. 

Glory of Phrygian raiment, which my thoughtKept for thy bridal day with some far-soughtQueen of the East, folds thee for evermore. And thou, grey Mother, Mother-Shield that bore

THE TROJAN WOMEN

A thousand days of glory, thy last crownIs here. . . . Dear Hector's shield! Thou shalt lie downUndying with the dead, and lordlier thereThan all the gold Odysseus' breast can bear, The evil and the strong!

CHORUS. _Some Women. _

Child of the Shield-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 performinga 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 riteBe 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 God[46];And in it nothing, nothing, save the rodOf mine affliction, and the eternal hate, Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted greatFor Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swellAnd bulls' blood on the altars!. . . All is well. Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrustOur high things low and shook our hills as dust, We had not been this splendour, and our wrongAn everlasting music for the songOf earth and heaven!

 Go, women: lay our deadIn his low sepulchre. He hath his meedOf robing. And, methinks, but little careToucheth the tomb, if they that moulder thereHave rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we, That dream, we living and our vanity!

[_The Women bear out the dead Child upon the shield, singing, whenpresently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of theCity_. 

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, passing 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 shockOf torches flung! What lingereth still, O wounded City, of unknown ill, Ere yet thou diest?

TALTHYBIUS (_coming out through the ruined Wall_). 

Ye Captains that have charge to wreck this keepOf Priam's City, let your torches sleepNo more! Up, fling the fire into her heart!Then have we done with Ilion, and may partIn joy to Hellas from this evil land. And ye--so hath one word two faces--stand, Daughters of Troy, till on your ruined wallThe echo of my master's trumpet callIn signal breaks: then, forward to the sea, Where the long ships lie waiting. 

 And for thee, O ancient woman most unfortunate, Follow: Odysseus' men be here, and waitTo guide thee. . . . 'Tis to him thou go'st for thrall. 

HECUBA. 

Ah, me! and is it come, the end of all, The very crest and summit of my days?I go forth from my land, and all its waysAre filled with fire! Bear me, O aged feet, A little nearer: I must gaze, and greetMy poor town ere she fall. 

 Farewell, farewell!O thou whose breath was mighty on the swellOf orient winds, my Troy! Even thy nameShall soon be taken from thee. Lo, the flameHath thee, and we, thy children, pass awayTo slavery. . . . God! O God of mercy!. . . Nay:Why call I on the Gods? They know, they know, My prayers, and would not hear them long ago. Quick, to the flames! O, in thine agony, My Troy, mine own, take me to die with thee!

[_She springs toward the flames, but is seized and held by theSoldiers. _

TALTHYBIUS. 

Back! Thou art drunken with thy miseries, Poor woman!--Hold her fast, men, till it pleaseOdysseus that she come. She was his lotChosen from all and portioned. Lose her not!

[_He goes to watch over the burning of the City. The dusk deepens_. 

CHORUS. _Divers Women_. 

 Woe, woe, woe!Thou of the Ages[47], O wherefore fleëst thou, Lord of the Phrygian, Father that made us? 'Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us? 'Tis we, thy children! Seëst thou, seëst thou?

_Others_. 

 He seëth, only his heart is pitiless; And the land dies: yea, she, She of the Mighty Cities perisheth citiless! Troy shall no more be!

_Others_. 

Woe, woe, woe! Ilion shineth afar!Fire in the deeps thereof, Fire in the heights above, And crested walls of War!

_Others_. As smoke on the wing of heaven Climbeth and scattereth, Torn of the spear and driven, The land crieth for death:O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven, And the sword's angry breath!

[_A new thought comes to_ HECUBA; _she kneels and beats the earth withher hands_. 

HECUBA. 

[_Strophe_. 

O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O mine own, Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness lying!

LEADER. 

Now hast thou found thy prayer[48], crying to them that are gone. 

HECUBA. 

Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your head;Hearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!

LEADER. 

 I, I am near thee; I kneel to thy dead to hear thee, Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear my crying!

HECUBA. 

Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they bear, LEADER. (Pain; O pain!)

HECUBA. 

We go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O hear!

LEADER. (Go, and come not again!)

HECUBA. 

Priam, mine own Priam, Lying so lowly, Thou in thy nothingness, Shelterless, comfortless, See'st thou the thing I am?Know'st thou my bitter stress?

LEADER. 

Nay, thou art naught to him!Out of the strife there came, Out of the noise and shame, Making his eyelids dim, Death, the Most Holy![_The fire and smoke rise constantly higher_. 

HECUBA. 

[_Antistrophe_. O high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth, Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and blood-red river!

LEADER. 

Fall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the gentle earth. 

HECUBA. 

The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing;It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished thing!

LEADER. 

 Out on the smoke she goeth, And her name no man knoweth;And the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone for ever!

[_A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in smoke and darkness_. 

HECUBA. 

Ha! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the towers that fall!

LEADER. 

 All is gone!

HECUBA. 

Wrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that sweepeth all, LEADER. 

 And passeth on! [_The Greek trumpet sounds_. 

HECUBA. 

Farewell!--O spirit grey, Whatso is coming, Fail not from under me. Weak limbs, why tremble ye?Forth where the new long dayDawneth to slavery!

CHORUS. 

Farewell from parting lips, Farewell!--Come, I and thou, Whatso may wait us now, Forth to the long Greek ships[49] And the sea's foaming. 

[_The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go out in the darkness. _

NOTES ON THE TROJAN WOMEN

[1] Poseidon. ]--In the _Iliad_ Poseidon is the enemy of Troy, here thefriend. This sort of confusion comes from the fact that the Trojans andtheir Greek enemies were largely of the same blood, with the same tribalgods. To the Trojans, Athena the War-Goddess was, of course, _their_War-Goddess, the protectress of their citadel. Poseidon, god of the seaand its merchandise, and Apollo (possibly a local shepherd god?), weretheir natural friends and had actually built their city wall for love ofthe good old king, Laomedon. Zeus, the great father, had Mount Ida forhis holy hill and Troy for his peculiar city. (Cf. On p. 63. )

To suit the Greek point of view all this had to be changed or explainedaway. In the _Iliad_ generally Athena is the proper War-Goddess of theGreeks. Poseidon had indeed built the wall for Laomedon, but Laomedonhad cheated him of his reward--as afterwards he cheated Heracles, andthe Argonauts and everybody else! So Poseidon hated Troy. Troy ischiefly defended by the barbarian Ares, the oriental Aphrodite, by itsown rivers Scamander and Simois and suchlike inferior or unprincipledgods. 

Yet traces of the other tradition remain. Homer knows that Athena isspecially worshipped in Troy. He knows that Apollo, who had built thewall with Poseidon, and had the same experience of Laomedon, still lovesthe Trojans. Zeus himself, though eventually in obedience to destiny hepermits the fall of the city, nevertheless has a great tendernesstowards it. 

[2] A steed marvellous. ]--See below, on p. 36. 

[3] go forth from great Ilion, &c. ]--The correct ancient doctrine. Whenyour gods forsook you, there was no more hope. Conversely, when yourstate became desperate, evidently your gods were forsaking you. Fromanother point of view, also, when the city was desolate and unable toworship its gods, the gods of that city were no more. 

[4] Laotian Tyndarid. ]--Helen was the child of Zeus and Leda, and sisterof Castor and Polydeuces; but her human father was Tyndareus, an oldSpartan king. She is treated as "a prisoner and a prize, " _i. E_. , as acaptured enemy, not as a Greek princess delivered from the Trojans. 

[5] In secret slain. ]--Because the Greeks were ashamed of the bloodydeed. See below, p. 42, and the scene on this subject in the _Hecuba_. 

[6] Cassandra. ]--In the _Agamemnon_ the story is more clearly told, thatCassandra was loved by Apollo and endowed by him with the power ofprophecy; then in some way she rejected or betrayed him, and he set uponher the curse that though seeing the truth she should never be believed. The figure of Cassandra in this play is not inconsistent with thatversion, but it makes a different impression. She is here a dedicatedvirgin, and her mystic love for Apollo does not seem to have sufferedany breach. 

[7] Pallas. ]--(See above. ) The historical explanation of the TrojanPallas and the Greek Pallas is simple enough; but as soon as the two aremythologically personified and made one, there emerges just such abitter and ruthless goddess as Euripides, in his revolt against thecurrent mythology, loved to depict. But it is not only the mythologythat he is attacking. He seems really to feel that if there areconscious gods ruling the world, they are cruel or "inhuman" beings. 

[8]--Ajax the Less, son of Oïleus, either ravished or attempted toravish Cassandra (the story occurs in both forms) while she was clingingto the Palladium or image of Pallas. It is one of the great typical sinsof the Sack of Troy, often depicted on vases. 

[9] Faces of ships. ]--Homeric ships had prows shaped and painted to looklike birds' or beasts' heads. A ship was always a wonderfully live andvivid thing to the Greek poets. (Cf. P. 64. )

[10] Castor. ]--Helen's brother: the Eurôtas, the river of her home, Sparta. 

[11] Fifty seeds. ]--Priam had fifty children, nineteen of them childrenof Hecuba (_Il_. Vi. 451, &c. ). 

[12] Pirênê. ]--The celebrated spring on the hill of Corinth. Drawingwater was a typical employment of slaves. 

[13] ff. , Theseus' land, &c. ]--Theseus' land is Attica. The poet, in themidst of his bitterness over the present conduct of his city, clings themore to its old fame for humanity. The "land high-born" where the Penêüsflows round the base of Mount Olympus in northern Thessaly is one of thehaunts of Euripides' dreams in many plays. Cf. _Bacchae_, 410 (p. 97 inmy translation). Mount Aetna fronts the "Tyrians' citadel, " _i. E. _. , Carthage, built by the Phoenicians. The "sister land" is the district ofSybaris in South Italy, where the river Crathis has, or had, a red-goldcolour, which makes golden the hair of men and the fleeces of sheep; andthe water never lost its freshness. 

[14] Talthybius is a loyal soldier with every wish to be kind. But he isnaturally in good spirits over the satisfactory end of the war, and histact is not sufficient to enable him to understand the Trojan Women'sfeelings. Yet in the end, since he has to see and do the cruelties whichhis Chiefs only order from a distance, the real nature of his workforces itself upon him, and he feels and speaks at times almost like aTrojan. It is worth noticing how the Trojan Women generally avoidaddressing him. (Cf. Pp. 48, 67, 74. )

[15] The haunted keys (literally, "with God through them, penetratingthem"). ]--Cassandra was his Key-bearer, holding the door of his HolyPlace. (Cf. _ Hip_. 540, p. 30. )

[16] She hath a toil, &c. ]--There is something true and pathetic aboutthis curious blindness which prevents Hecuba from understanding "soplain a riddle. " (Cf. Below, p. 42. ) She takes the watching of a Tomb tobe some strange Greek custom, and does not seek to have it explainedfurther. 

[17] Odysseus. ]--In Euripides generally Odysseus is the type of thesuccessful unscrupulous man, as soldier and politician--the incarnationof what the poet most hated. In Homer of course he is totally different. 

[18] Burn themselves and die. ]--Women under these circumstances didcommit suicide in Euripides' day, as they have ever since. It is rathercurious that none of the characters of the play, not even Andromache, kills herself. The explanation must be that no such suicide was recordedin the tradition (though cf. Below, on p. 33); a significant fact, suggesting that in the Homeric age, when this kind of treatment of womencaptives was regular, the victims did not suffer quite so terribly underit. 

[19] Hymen. ]--She addresses the Torch. The shadowy Marriage-god "Hymen"was a torch and a cry as much as anything more personal. As a torch heis the sign both of marriage and of death, of sunrise and of theconsuming fire. The full Moon was specially connected with marriageceremonies. 

[20] Loxias. ]--The name of Apollo as an Oracular God. 

[21] Cassandra's visions. ]--The allusions are to the various sufferingsof Odysseus, as narrated in the _Odyssey_, and to the tragedies of thehouse of Atreus, as told for instance in Aeschylus' _Oresteia_. Agamemnon together with Cassandra, and in part because he broughtCassandra, was murdered--felled with an axe--on his return home by hiswife Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Their bodies were cast intoa pit among the rocks. In vengeance for this, Orestes, Agamemnon's son, committed "mother-murder, " and in consequence was driven by the Erinyes(Furies) of his mother into madness and exile. 

[22] This their king so wise. ]--Agamemnon made the war for the sake ofhis brother Menelaus, and slew his daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrificeat Aulis, to enable the ships to sail for Troy. 

[23] Hector and Paris. ]--The point about Hector is clear, but as toParis, the feeling that, after all, it was a glory that he and thehalf-divine Helen loved each other, is scarcely to be found anywhereelse in Greek literature. (Cf. , however, Isocrates' "Praise of Helen. ")Paris and Helen were never idealised like Launcelot and Guinevere, orTristram and Iseult. 

[24] A wise queen. ]--Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus. 

[25] O Heralds, yea, Voices of Death. ]--There is a play on the word for"heralds" in the Greek here, which I have evaded by a paraphrase. ([Greek: Kaer-ukes] as though from [Greek: Kaer] the death-spirit, "theone thing abhorred of all mortal men. ")

[26] That in this place she dies. ]--The death of Hecuba is connectedwith a certain heap of stones on the shore of the Hellespont, called_Kunossêma_, or "Dog's Tomb. " According to one tradition (Eur. _Hec_. 1259 ff. ) she threw herself off the ship into the sea; according toanother she was stoned by the Greeks for her curses upon the fleet; butin both she is changed after death into a sort of Hell-hound. M. VictorBérard suggests that the dog first comes into the story owing to theaccidental resemblance of the (hypothetical) Semitic word _S'qoulah_, "Stone" or "Stoning, " and the Greek _Skulax_, dog. The Homeric Scylla(_Skulla_) was also both a Stone and a Dog (_Phéneciens et Odyssée_, i. 213). Of course in the present passage there is no direct reference tothese wild sailor-stories. 

[27] The wind comes quick. ]--_i. E. _. The storm of the Prologue. ThreePowers: the three Erinyes. 

[28] ff. , Chorus. ]--The Wooden Horse is always difficult to understand, and seems to have an obscuring effect on the language of poets who treatof it. I cannot help suspecting that the story arises from a realhistorical incident misunderstood. Troy, we are told, was still holdingout after ten years and could not be taken, until at last by the divinesuggestions of Athena, a certain Epeios devised a "Wooden Horse. "

What was the "device"? According to the _Odyssey_ and most Greek poets, it was a gigantic wooden figure of a horse. A party of heroes, led byOdysseus, got inside it and waited. The Greeks made a show of giving upthe siege and sailed away, but only as far as Tenedos. The Trojans cameout and found the horse, and after wondering greatly what it was meantfor and what to do with it, made a breach in their walls and dragged itinto the Citadel as a thank-offering to Pallas. In the night the Greeksreturned; the heroes in the horse came out and opened the gates, andTroy was captured. 

It seems possible that the "device" really was the building of a woodensiege-tower, as high as the walls, with a projecting and revolving neck. Such engines were (1) capable of being used at the time in Asia, as arare and extraordinary device, because they exist on early Assyrianmonuments; (2) certain to be misunderstood in Greek legendary tradition, because they were not used in Greek warfare till many centuries later. (First, perhaps, at the sieges of Perinthus and Byzantium by Philip ofMacedon, 340 B. C. )

It is noteworthy that in the great picture by Polygnôtus in the Leschêat Delphi "above the wall of Troy appears the head alone of the WoodenHorse" (_Paus_. X. 26). Aeschylus also (_Ag_. 816) has some obscurephrases pointing in the same direction: "A horse's brood, ashield-bearing people, launched with a leap about the Pleiads' setting, sprang clear above the wall, " &c. Euripides here treats the horsemetaphorically as a sort of war-horse trampling Troy. 

[29] Her that spareth not, Heaven's yokeless rider. ]--Athena like anorthern Valkyrie, as often in the _Iliad_. If one tries to imagine whatAthena, the War-Goddess worshipped by the Athenian mob, was like--what amixture of bad national passions, of superstition and statecraft, ofslip-shod unimaginative idealisation--one may partly understand whyEuripides made her so evil. Allegorists and high-minded philosophersmight make Athena entirely noble by concentrating their minds on thebeautiful elements in the tradition, and forgetting or explaining awayall that was savage; he was determined to pin her down to the worstfacts recorded of her, and let people worship such a being if theyliked!

[30] To Artemis. ]--Maidens at the shrine of Artemis are a fixed datum inthe tradition. (Cf. _Hec_. 935 ff. )

[31] Andromache and Hecuba. ]--This very beautiful scene is perhapsmarred to most modern readers by an element which is merely a part ofthe convention of ancient mourning. Each of the mourners cries: "Thereis no affliction like mine!" and then proceeds to argue, as it were, against the other's counter claim. One can only say that it was, afterall, what they expected of each other; and I believe the same conventionexists in most places where keening or wailing is an actual practice. 

[32] Even as the sound of a song. ]--I have filled in some words whichseem to be missing in the Greek here. 

[33]Andromache. ]--This character is wonderfully studied. She seems to meto be a woman who has not yet shown much character or perhaps had veryintense experience, but is only waiting for sufficiently great trials tobecome a heroine and a saint. There is still a marked element ofconventionality in her description of her life with Hector; but onefeels, as she speaks, that she is already past it. Her character isbuilt up of "_Sophrosyne_, " of self-restraint and the love ofgoodness--qualities which often seem second-rate or even tiresome untilthey have a sufficiently great field in which to act. Verycharacteristic is her resolution to make the best, and not the worst, ofher life in Pyrrhus' house, with all its horror of suffering andapparent degradation. So is the self-conquest by which she deliberatelyrefrains from cursing her child's murderers, for the sake of the lastpoor remnant of good she can still do to him, in getting him buried. Thenobility of such a character depends largely, of course, on theintensity of the feelings conquered. 

It is worth noting, in this connection, that Euripides is contradictinga wide-spread tradition (Robert, _Bild und Lied_, pp. 63 ff. ). Andromache, in the pictures of the Sack of Troy, is represented with agreat pestle or some such instrument fighting with the Soldiers torescue Astyanax ([Greek:'Andro-machae]= "Man-fighting"). 

Observe, too, what a climax of drama is reached by means of the veryfact that Andromache, to the utmost of her power, tries to do nothing"dramatic, " but only what will be best. Her character in Euripides'play, _Andromache_, is, on the whole, similar to this, but lessdeveloped. 

[34] In Salamis, filled with the foaming, &c. ]--A striking instance ofthe artistic value of the Greek chorus in relieving an intolerablestrain. The relief provided is something much higher than what weordinarily call "relief"; it is a stream of pure poetry and music in keywith the sadness of the surrounding scene, yet, in a way, happy justbecause it is beautiful. (Cf. Note on _Hippolytus_, 1. 732. )

The argument of the rather difficult lyric is: "This is not the firsttime Troy has been taken. Long ago Heracles made war against the oldking Laomedon, because he had not given him the immortal steeds that hepromised. And Telamon joined him; Telamon who might have been happy inhis island of Salamis, among the bees and the pleasant waters, lookingover the strait to the olive-laden hills of Athens, the beloved City!And they took ship and slew Laomedon. Yea, twice Zeus has destroyedIlion!

(Second part. ) Is it all in vain that our Trojan princes have been lovedby the Gods? Ganymêdês pours the nectar of Zeus in his banquets, hisface never troubled, though his motherland is burned with fire! And, tosay nothing of Zeus, how can the Goddess of Morning rise and shine uponus uncaring? She loved Tithônus, son of Laomedon, and bore him up fromus in a chariot to be her husband in the skies. But all that once madethem love us is gone!"

[35] Pools of thy bathing. ]--It is probable that Ganymêdês was himselforiginally a pool or a spring on Ida, now a pourer of nectar in heaven. 

[36] Menelaus and Helen. ]--The meeting of Menelaus and Helen after thetaking of Troy was naturally one of the great moments in the heroiclegend. The versions, roughly speaking, divide themselves into two. Inone (_Little Iliad_, Ar. _Lysistr_. 155, Eur. _Andromache_ 628) Menelausis about to kill her, but as she bares her bosom to the sword, the swordfalls from his hand. In the other (Stesichorus, _Sack of Ilion_ (?))Menelaus or some one else takes her to the ships to be stoned, and themen cannot stone her. As Quintus of Smyrna says, "They looked on her asthey would on a God!"

Both versions have affected Euripides here. And his Helen has just themagic of the Helen of legend. That touch of the supernatural whichbelongs of right to the Child of Heaven--a mystery, a gentleness, astrange absence of fear or wrath--is felt through all her words. Oneforgets to think of her guilt or innocence; she is too wonderful a beingto judge, too precious to destroy. This supernatural element, being thething which, if true, separates Helen from other women, and in a wayredeems her, is for that reason exactly what Hecuba denies. Thecontroversy has a certain eternal quality about it: the hypothesis ofheavenly enchantment and the hypothesis of mere bad behaviour, neitherof them entirely convincing! But the very curses of those that hate hermake a kind of superhuman atmosphere about Helen in this play; she fillsthe background like a great well-spring of pain. 

This Menelaus, however, is rather different from the traditionalMenelaus. Besides being the husband of Helen, he is the typicalConqueror, for whose sake the Greeks fought and to whom the centralprize of the war belongs. And we take him at the height of his triumph, the very moment for which he made the war! Hence the peculiar bitternesswith which he is treated, his conquest turning to ashes in his mouth, and his love a confused turmoil of hunger and hatred, contemptible andyet terrible. 

The exit of the scene would leave a modern audience quite in doubt as towhat happened, unless the action were much clearer than the words. Butall Athenians knew from the _Odyssey_ that the pair were swiftlyreconciled, and lived happily together as King and Queen of Sparta. 

[37] Thou deep base of the world. ]--These lines, as a piece of religiousspeculation, were very famous in antiquity. And dramatically they aremost important. All through the play Hecuba is a woman of remarkableintellectual power and of fearless thought. She does not definitely denythe existence of the Olympian gods, like some characters in Euripides, but she treats them as beings that have betrayed her, and whose name shescarcely deigns to speak. It is the very godlessness of Hecuba'sfortitude that makes it so terrible and, properly regarded, so noble. (Cf. P. 35 "Why call on things so weak?" and p. 74 "They know, theyknow. . . . ") Such Gods were as a matter of fact the moral inferiors ofgood men, and Euripides will never blind his eyes to their inferiority. And as soon as people see that their god is bad, they tend to ceasebelieving in his existence at all. (Hecuba's answer to Helen is notinconsistent with this, it is only less characteristic. )

Behind this Olympian system, however, there is a possibility of somereal Providence or impersonal Governance of the world, to which here, for a moment, Hecuba makes a passionate approach. If there is _any_explanation, _any_ justice, even in the form of mere punishment of thewicked, she will be content and give worship! But it seems that there isnot. Then at last there remains--what most but not all modernfreethinkers would probably have begun to doubt at the verybeginning--the world of the departed, the spirits of the dead, who aretrue, and in their dim way love her still (p. 71 "Thy father far awayshall comfort thee, " and the last scene of the play). 

This last religion, faint and shattered by doubt as it is, represents areturn to the most primitive "Pelasgian" beliefs, a worship of the Deadwhich existed long before the Olympian system, and has long outlived it. 

[38] The fire-brand's image. ]--Hecuba, just before Paris' birth, dreamedthat she gave birth to a fire-brand. The prophets therefore advised thatthe babe should be killed; but Priam disobeyed them. 

[39] Three Crowns of Life. ]--On the Judgment of Paris see Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena_. Pp. 292 ff. Late writers degrade the story into a beautycontest between three thoroughly personal goddesses--and a contestcomplicated by bribery. But originally the Judgment is rather a Choicebetween three possible lives, like the Choice of Heracles between Workand Idleness. The elements of the choice vary in different versions: butin general Hera is royalty; Athena is prowess in war or personal merit;Aphrodite, of course, is love. And the goddesses are not really to bedistinguished from the gifts they bring. They are what they give, andnothing more. Cf. The wonderful lyric _Androm_. 274 ff. , where they cometo "a young man walking to and fro alone, in an empty hut in thefirelight. "

There is an extraordinary effect in Helen herself _being_ one of theCrowns of Life--a fair equivalent for the throne of the world. 

[40] Alexander . . . Paris. ]--Two plays on words in the Greek. 

[41] The old Gate-Warden. ]--He and the Watchers are, of course, safelydead. But on the general lines of the tradition it may well be thatHelen is speaking the truth. She loved both Menelaus and Paris; and, according to some versions, hated Dêiphobus, the Trojan prince whoseized her after Paris' death. There is a reference to Dêiphobus in theMSS. Of the play here, but I follow Wilamowitz in thinking it spurious. 

[42] Chorus. ]--On the Trojan Zeus see above, on p. 11. Mount Ida caughtthe rays of the rising sun in some special manner and distributed themto the rest of the world; and in this gleam of heavenly fire the God hadhis dwelling, which is now the brighter for the flames of his City goingup like incense!

Nothing definite is known of the Golden Images and the Moon-Feasts. 

[43] Towers of the Giants. ]--The pre-historic castles of Tiryns andMycênae. 

[44] May Helen be there. ]--(Cf. Above. ) Pitanê was one of the fivedivisions of Sparta. Athena had a "Bronzen House" on the acropolis ofSparta. Simoïs, of course, the river of Troy. 

[45] I make thee whole. ]--Here as elsewhere Hecuba fluctuates betweenfidelity to the oldest and most instinctive religion, and a rejection ofall Gods. 

[46] Lo, I have seen the open hand of God. ]--The text is, perhaps, imperfect here; but Professor Wilamowitz agrees with me that Hecuba hasseen something like a vision. The meaning of this speech is of theutmost importance. It expresses the inmost theme of the whole play, asearch for an answer to the injustice of suffering in the very splendourand beauty of suffering. Of course it must be suffering of a particularkind, or, what comes to the same thing, suffering borne in a particularway; but in that case the answer seems to me to hold. One does notreally think the world evil because there are martyrs or heroes in it. For them the elements of beauty which exist in any great trial of thespirit become so great as to overpower the evil that created them--toturn it from shame and misery into tragedy. Of course to most sufferers, to children and animals and weak people, or those without inspiration, the doctrine brings no help. It is a thing invented by a poet forhimself. 

[47] Thou of the Ages. ]--The Phrygian All-Father, identified with Zeus, son of Kronos. (Cf. On p. 11. )

[48] Now hast thou found thy prayer. ]--The Gods have deserted her, butshe has still the dead. (Cf. Above, on p. 71. )

[49] Forth to the dark Greek ships. ]--Curiously like another magnificentending of a great poem, that of the _Chanson de Roland_, whereCharlemagne is called forth on a fresh quest:

"Deus, " dist li Reis, "si penuse est ma vie!"Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret. . . .