The Trojan women of Euripides | Page 8

(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 them Of dead men's anguish, like a diadem, These
weak abhorred things that serve the hate Of kings and peoples!...
To Odysseus' gate My mother goeth, say'st thou? Is God's word As
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,
before They come?... Little he knows, that hard-beset Spirit, what deeps
of woe await him yet; Till all these tears of ours and harrowings Of
Troy, by his, shall be as golden things. Ten years behind ten years
athwart his way Waiting: 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 plain A rift of
the hills, raging with winter rain, Dead ... and out-cast ... and naked....
It is I Beside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry, And ravin on
God's chosen!
[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the wreaths.
O, ye wreaths! Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes About
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 spread The 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 sweet City, my earth-clad brethren, and

thou great Sire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead, And I am with you,
yea, with crowned head I come, and shining from the fires that feed On
these that slay us now, and all their seed!
[She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers Hecuba, after
waiting 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
without rising.
HECUBA.
Let lie ... the love we seek not is no love.... This ruined body! Is the fall
thereof Too deep for all that now is over me Of anguish, and hath been,
and yet shall be? Ye Gods.... Alas! Why call on things so weak For 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 ago And weave them to a
song, like one more tear In the heart of misery.... All kings we were;
And I must wed a king. And sons I brought My lord King, many sons ...
nay, that were naught; But high strong princes, of all Troy the best.
Hellas nor Troäs nor the garnered East Held such a mother! And all
these things beneath The 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 tale I wept for; these eyes
saw him, when the pale Was broke, and there at the altar Priam fell
Murdered, and round him all his citadel Sacked. 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
upon Their faces any more, nor they on mine. And now my feet tread on
the utmost line: An old, old slave-woman, I pass below Mine enemies'
gates; and whatso task they know For this age basest, shall be mine;
the door, Bowing, to shut and open.... I that bore Hector!... and meal to

grind, and this racked head Bend to the stones after a royal bed; Tom
rags about me, aye, and under them Tom flesh; 'twill make a woman
sick for shame! Woe's me; and all that one man's arms might hold One
woman, what long seas have o'er me rolled And roll for ever!... O my
child, whose white Soul