The Trojan women of Euripides | Page 4

Nor word from all the Greeks!
POSEIDON.
And 'twas thine hand That gave them Troy!
PALLAS.
Therefore with thee I stand To smite them.
POSEIDON.
All thou cravest, even now Is ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?
PALLAS.
An homecoming that striveth ever more And cometh to no home.
POSEIDON.
Here on the shore Wouldst 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 driven Hail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven; To me his levin-light he promiseth O'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death: Do thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steep With war of waves and yawning of the deep, Till dead men choke Euboea's curling bay. So Greece shall dread even in an after day My house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!
POSEIDON.
I give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands Shall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that cross The Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos, Scyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-driven Caphêreus with the bones of drownèd men Shall glut him.--Go thy ways, and bid the Sire Yield to thine hand the arrows of his fire. Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind Her cable coil for home! [Exit PALLAS.
How are ye blind, Ye treaders down of cities, ye that cast Temples to desolation, and lay waste Tombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie The 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, stored Of 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 fain Move to the tune of tears that flow: For tears are music too, and keep A 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 lord Hateth: and Castor's[10] shame Is hot for her sake, and the reeds Of old Eur?tas stir With 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 other Trojan 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 right opens, 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 outpour Its sorrow: and there shivered by Fear and a quick sob shaken From 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? Overseas Bear 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, wake And learn your lots! Even now