Chapter II

On him your tenfold vengeance shed
From Oeneus who derives his birth,
Smite base Ulysses’ perjured head,
Ye fiends who desolate the earth;
Through them with agonizing pain
I mourn my valiant offspring slain;
May Helen too partake their doom,
Who from her bridal mansions fled,
And sought th’ adulterer’s Phrygian bed;
For thou in Troy art to the tomb
By her consigned; and many a state
Bewails its bravest warriors’ fate.

Much while on earth, and since thy murmuring ghost
Was plunged in Orcus’ dreary mansions more,
O offspring of Philammon, didst thou wound
My soul: that arrogance which caused thy ruin,
That contest with Pieria’s choir, gave birth
To this unhappy youth: for having passed
The rapid current, with incautious step
Approaching Strymon’s genial bed, we mounted
Pangæum’s summit, for its golden mines
Distinguished; each melodious instrument
Around us in full concert breathed; our strife
Was there decided with the Thracian minstrel;
That Thamyris who dared blaspheme our art,
We of his eyes deprived. But since I bore
Thee, O my son, through deference for my sisters,
And for my own reputed chastity,
Thee to the watery mansions of thy sire
I sent; and Strymon, to no human care,
But to the nymphs who haunt his limpid founts,
For nurture did consign thee; from those virgins
When, O my dearest son, thou hadst received
The best of educations, thou becam’st
Monarch of Thrace, the first of men. I felt
No boding apprehensions of thy death;
By thee, while marshalled on thy native ground,
Athirst for blood the dauntless squadrons moved.
But thee I cautioned, for I knew thy fate,
That thou to Troy shouldst never go; but thee
Th’ ambassadors of Hector and the Senate,
By oft repeated messages, persuaded
To come to the assistance of thy friends.
Yet think not, O Minerva, thou sole cause
Of my son’s fate, that thou these watchful eyes
Hast ’scaped; Ulysses and the son of Tydeus
Were not the authors of this bloody deed,
Although they gave the wound. We sister Muses
Honour thy city, in thy land we dwell.
Orpheus, the kinsman of this hapless youth
Whom thou hast slain, dark mysteries did unfold;
And by Apollo, and our sister choir,
Thy venerable citizen Musæus
Was taught to soar beyond each warbled strain
Of pristine melody: but in return
For all these favours, bearing in my arms
My son, I utter this funereal dirge;
But I no other minstrel will employ.

CHOR. Falsely the wounded Thracian charioteer
Charged us with a conspiracy to slay him.

HEC. Full well I knew, there needed not a seer
T’ inform me, that he perished by the arts
Of Ithacus. But was it not my duty
When I my country saw by Grecian troops
Besieged, to send forth heralds to my friends,
Requesting them to aid us? I did send,
And Rhesus came, by gratitude constrained,
Illustrious partner of my toils. His death
Lamenting, will I raise a tomb to grace
The corse of my ally, and o’er the flame
Strew tissued vests: for with confederate arms
Dauntless he came, though piteous was his death.

MUSE. They shall not plunge him in the yawning grave,
Such vows will I address to Pluto’s bride,
Daughter of fruitful Ceres, to release
His ghost from the drear shades beneath: she owes
To Orpheus’ friends such honours. But henceforth,
Dead as it were to me, will he no more
Behold the sun, we ne’er must meet again,
Nor shall he see his mother, but shall lie
Concealed beneath the caverns of that land
With silver mines abounding, from a man
Exalted to a god, restored to life,
The priest of Bacchus, and of him who dwells
Beneath Pangeum’s rock, a god adored
By those who haunt his orgies. But ere long
To yonder goddess of the briny waves
Shall I bear doleful tidings: for by fate
It is decreed, her offspring too shall die;
But first our sisterhood, in choral plaints,
Will sing of thee, O Rhesus, and hereafter
Achilles, son of Thetis, shall demand
Our elegiac strains, not she who slew
Thee, hapless youth, Minerva, can redeem him;
Such an inevitable shaft is stored
In Phœbus’ quiver. O ye pangs that rend
A mother’s breast, ye toils the lot of man;
They who behold you in your real light
Will live without a progeny, nor mourn
With hopeless anguish o’er their children’s tomb.

[_Exit the_ MUSE.

CHOR. To bury the deceased with honours due,
Will be his mother’s care: but if, O Hector,
Thou mean’st to execute some great emprise,
’Tis now the time: for morn already dawns.

HEC. Go, and this instant bid our comrades arm,
Harness the steeds: but while ye in these toils
Are busied, ye the signal must await,
Th’ Etrurian trumpet’s clangour; for I trust
I first shall o’er the Grecian host prevail,
Shall storm their ramparts, and then burn their fleet,
And that Hyperion’s orient beams will bring
A day of freedom to Troy’s valiant race.

CHOR. Obey the monarch: clad in glittering mail
Let us go forth, and his behests proclaim
To our associates; for that god who fights
Our battles, haply will bestow success.

THE TROJAN CAPTIVES.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

NEPTUNE.
MINERVA.
HECUBA.
CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN DAMES.
TALTHYBIUS.
CASSANDRA.
ANDROMACHE.
MENELAUS.
HELEN.

SCENE.—BEFORE THE ENTRANCE OF AGAMEMNON’S TENT IN THE GRECIAN CAMP NEAR TROY.

NEPTUNE.

From the Ægean deep, in mazy dance
Where Nereus’ daughters glide with agile feet,
I Neptune hither come. For round the fields
Of Ilion, since Apollo and myself
With symmetry exact reared many a tower
Hewn from the solid rock; the love I bore
The city where my Phrygian votaries dwelt,
Laid waste by Greece, where smoke e’en now ascends
The heavens, hath ne’er been rooted from this breast,
For on Parnassus bred, the Phocian chief
Epeus, by Minerva’s arts inspired,
Framed with a skilful hand, and through the gates
Sent that accursed machine, the horse which teemed
With ambushed javelins. Through forsaken groves,
Through the polluted temples of the gods,
Flow tides of crimson slaughter; at the base
Of altars sacred to Hercæan Jove,
Fell hoary Priam. But huge heaps of gold
And Phrygian plunder, to the fleet of Greece
Are sent: the leaders of the host that sacked
This city, wait but for a prosperous breeze,
That after ten years absence they their wives
And children may with joy behold. Subdued
By Juno, Argive goddess, and Minerva,
Who leagued in Phrygia’s overthrow, I leave
Troy the renowned, and my demolished shrines.
For when pernicious solitude extends
O’er cities her inexorable sway,
Abandoned are the temples of the gods,
None comes to worship there. Scamander’s banks
Re-echo many a shriek of captive dames
Distributed by lot; th’ Arcadians, some,
Some the Thessalians gain, and some the sons
Of Theseus leaders of th’ Athenian troops:
But they whom chance distributes not, remain
Beneath yon roof selected by the chiefs
Of the confederate army. Justly deemed
A captive, among them is Spartan Helen:
And if the stranger wishes to behold
That wretched woman, Hecuba lies stretched
Before the gate, full many are her tears,
And her afflictions many: at the tomb
Of stern Achilles her unhappy daughter
Polyxena died wretchedly, her lord
The royal Priam, and her sons are slain,
That spotless virgin too whom from his shrine
Apollo with prophetic gifts inspired,
Cassandra, spurning every sacred rite,
Did Agamemnon violently drag
To his adulterous bed. But, O farewell,
Thou city prosperous once; ye splendid towers,
Had not Minerva’s self ordained your fall,
Ye still on your firm basis might remain.

MINERVA, NEPTUNE.

MIN. May I accost the god who to my sire
In blood is nearest, mighty, through high Heaven
Revered, and lay aside our ancient hate?

NEP. ’Tis well, thou royal maid: an interview
’Twixt those of the same house, is to the soul
An efficacious philtre.

MIN. I applaud
Those who are temperate in their wrath, and bring
Such arguments, O monarch, as affect
Both you and me.

NEP. From all th’ assembled gods
Some new commission bear’st thou, or from Jove,
Or what celestial power?

MIN. From none of these.
But in the cause of Troy, whose fields we tread,
I to your aid betake me, and would join
Our common strength.

NEP. Hast thou then laid aside
Thy former hate, to pity Troy, consumed
By the relentless flames?

MIN. First, thither turn
Your views: to me will you unfold your counsels,
And aid the schemes I would effect?

NEP. With joy:
But I meanwhile would thy designs explore,
Whether thou com’st on the behalf of Greece,
Or Troy.

MIN. The Trojans, erst my foes, I wish
To cheer, and to embitter the return
Of the victorious Grecian host.

NEP. What means
This change of temper? to excess thou hat’st
And lov’st at random.

MIN. Know you not the insult
Which hath been shown to me, and to my temple?

NEP. I know that Ajax violently tore
Cassandra thence.

MIN. Yet by the Greeks unpunished
He ’scaped, and e’en uncensured.

NEP. Though the Greeks
O’erthrew Troy’s walls through thy auxiliar might——

MIN. And for this very cause will I conspire
With you to punish them.

NEP. I am prepared
For any enterprise thou wilt. What mean’st thou?

MIN. Their journey home I am resolved to make
Most inauspicious.

NEP. While they yet remain
Upon the shore, or ’midst the briny waves?

MIN. As to their homes from Ilion’s coast they sail.
For Jove will send down rain, immoderate hail,
And pitchy blasts of air: he promises
To give me too his thunderbolts to smite
The Greeks and fire their ships; but join your aid,
Cause the Ægean deep with threefold waves,
And ocean’s whirlpools horribly to rage,
Fill with their courses the unfathomed caves
Beneath Eubœa’s rocks, that Greece may learn
My shrines to reverence, nor provoke the gods.

NEP. It shall be done: there need not many words
To recommend thy suit. My storms shall rouse
Th’ Ægean deep; the shores of Myconè,
Scyros with Lemnos, all the Delian rocks,
And steep Caphareus with full many a corse
Will I o’erspread. But mount Olympus’ height,
And from the Thunderer’s hand his flaming shafts
Receiving, mark when the devoted host
Of Greece weigh anchor. Frantic is the man
Who dares to lay the peopled city waste,
Temples with tombs profaning, and bereaves
Of their inhabitants those sacred vaults
Where sleep the dead; at length shall vengeance smite
That hardened miscreant in his bold career.

[_Exeunt._

_The Scene opens, and discovers_ HECUBA _on a couch_.

HEC. Arise, thou wretch, and from the dust uplift
Thy drooping head; though Ilion be no more,
And thou a queen no longer, yet endure
With patience Fortune’s change, and as the tide
Or as capricious Fortune wills, direct
Thy sails, nor turn against the dashing wave
Life’s stubborn prow, for chance must guide thy voyage.
Alas! for what but groans belongs to me
Whose country, children, husband, are no more?
Oh, mighty splendour of my sires, now pent
In a small tomb, how art thou found a thing
Of no account! What portion of my woes
Shall I suppress, or what describe, how frame
A plaintive strain? Now fixed on this hard couch,
Wretch that I am, are my unwieldy limbs.
Ah me! my head, my temples, ah, my side!
Oh, how I wish to turn, and to stretch forth
These joints! My tears shall never cease to flow,
For like the Muse’s lyre, th’ affecting tale
Of their calamities consoles the wretched.
Ye prows of those swift barks which to the coast
Of fated Ilion, from the Grecian ports
Adventurous launched amid the purple wave,
Accompanied by inauspicious pæans
From pipes, and the shrill flute’s enlivening voice,
While from the mast devolved the twisted cordage
By Egypt first devised, ye to the bay
Of Troy did follow Menelaus’ wife,
Helen, abhorred adult’ress, who disgraced
Castor her brother, and Eurotas’ stream:
She murdered Priam, sire of fifty sons,
And me the wretched Hecuba hath plunged
Into this misery. Here, alas! I sit
In my loathed prison, Agamemnon’s tent;
From princely mansions dragged, an aged slave,
My hoary tresses shorn, this head deformed
With baldness. But, alas! ye hapless wives
Of Ilion’s dauntless warriors, blooming maids,
And brides affianced in an evil hour,
Together let us weep, for Ilion’s smoke
Ascends the skies. Like the maternal bird,
Who wails her callow brood, I now commence
A strain far different from what erst was heard
When I on mighty Priam’s sceptred state
Proudly relying, led the Phrygian dance
Before the hallowed temples of the gods.

[_She rises, and comes forth from the tent._

SEMICHORUS, HECUBA.

SEMICHOR. O Hecuba, what mean these clamorous notes,
These shrieks of woe? for from the vaulted roof
Thy plaints re-echoing smite my distant ear,
And fresh alarms seize every Phrygian dame
Who in these tents enslaved deplores her fate.

HEC. E’en now, my daughter, at the Grecian fleet
Th’ exulting sailors ply their oars.

SEMICHOR. Ah me!
What mean they? will they instantly convey me
Far from my ruined country?

HEC. By conjecture
Alone am I acquainted with our doom.

SEMICHOR. Soon shall we hear this sentence: “From these doors
Come forth ye Trojan captives, for the Greeks
Are now preparing to return.”

HEC. O cease,
My friends, nor from her chambers hither bring
Cassandra, frantic prophetess, defiled
By Argive ruffians, for the sight of her
Would but increase my griefs.

SEMICHOR. Troy, wretched Troy,
Thou art no more, they to whom fate ordains
No longer on thy fostering soil to dwell
Are wretched, both the living and the slain.

CHORUS, HECUBA.

CHOR. Trembling I come from Agamemnon’s tent,
Of thee my royal mistress to inquire
Whether the Greeks have doomed me to be slain,
And whether yet along the poop arranged
The mariners prepare to ply their oars.

HEC. Deprived of sleep through horror, O my daughter,
I hither came: but on the road I see
A Grecian herald.

CHOR. Tell me to what lord
Am wretched I consigned.

HEC. E’en now the lot
Is casting to decide your fate.

CHOR. What chief
To Argos, or to Phthia, me shall bear,
Or to some island, sorrowing, far from Troy?

HEC. To whom shall wretched I, and in what land
Become a slave, decrepit like the drone
Through age, mere semblance of a pallid corse,
Or flitting spectre from the realms beneath?
Shall I be stationed or to watch the door,
Or tend the children of a haughty lord,
Erst placed at Troy in rank supreme?

CHOR. Alas!

HEC. With what loud plaints dost thou revive thy woes!

CHOR. I never more through Ida’s loom shall dart
The shuttle, nor behold a blooming race
Of children, in those lighter tasks employed
Which suit the young and beauteous, to the couch
Of some illustrious Greek conveyed, the joys
Which night and fortune yields are lost to me;
Or filled with water, from Pirene’s spring
Shall I be doomed to bear the ponderous urn.

HEC. O could we reach the famed and happy realm
Of Theseus, distant from Eurotas’ tide,
And curst Therapne’s gates, where I should meet
Perfidious Helen, and remain a slave
To Menelaus, who demolished Troy.

CHOR. By fame’s loud voice I am informed, the vale
Of Peneus, at Olympus base, abounds
With wealth and plenteous fruitage.

HEC. This I make
My second option, next the blest domain
Of Theseus.

CHOR. I am told that Vulcan’s realm
Of Ætna, opposite Phœnicia’s coast
The mother of Sicilian hills, is famed
For palms obtained by valour. Through the realm
Adjacent, bordering on th’ Ionian deep,
Crathis the bright, for auburn hair renowned,
The tribute of its holy current pours,
And scatters blessings o’er a martial land.
But lo, with hasty step a herald comes
Bearing some message from the Grecian host!
What is his errand? for we now are slaves
To yon proud rulers of the Doric realm.

TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS.

TAL. O Hecuba, full oft, you know, to Troy
I, as their herald, by the Grecian host
Have been despatched; you cannot be a stranger
To me, Talthybius, who to you, and all,
One message bring.

HEC. This, this, my dearest friends,
Is what I long have feared.

TAL. The lots are cast
Already, if your terrors thence arose.

HEC. Alas, to what Thessalian city saidst thou,
Or to the Phthian, or the Theban realm
Shall we be carried?

TAL. To a separate lord
Hath each of you distinctly been assigned.

HEC. To whom, alas, to whom am I allotted?
What Phrygian dames do happier fortunes wait?

TAL. I know; but be distinct in your inquiries,
Nor ask at once a multitude of questions.

HEC. Say who by lot hath gained my wretched daughter
Cassandra?

TAL. Her the royal Agamemnon
His chosen prize hath taken.

HEC. As a slave
To tend his Spartan wife? ah, me!

TAL. No slave,
But concubine.

HEC. What, Phœbus’ votive maid,
To whom the god with golden tresses gave
This privilege, that she should pass her life
In celibacy?

TAL. With the shafts of love
Hath the prophetic nymph transpierced his breast.

HEC. My daughter, cast the sacred keys away,
And rend the garlands thou with pride didst wear.

TAL. Is it not great for captives to ascend
The regal couch?

HEC. But where is she whom late
Ye took away, and whither have ye borne
That daughter?

TAL. Speak you of Polyxena,
Or for whom else would you inquire?

HEC. On whom
Hath chance bestowed her?

TAL. At Achilles’ tomb
It is decreed that she shall minister.

HEC. Wretch that I am! for his sepulchral rites
Have I then borne a priestess? but what law
Is this, what Grecian usage, O my friend?

TAL. Esteem your daughter happy; for with her
All now is well.

HEC. What saidst thou? doth she live?

TAL. ’Tis her peculiar fate to be released
From all affliction.

HEC. But, alas! what fortune
Attends the warlike Hector’s captive wife,
How fares it with the lost Andromache?

TAL. Her to Achilles’ son hath from the band
Of captives chosen.

HEC. As to me who need
For a third foot, the staff which in these hands
I hold, whose head is whitened o’er with age,
To whom am I a slave?

TAL. By lot the king
Of Ithaca Ulysses hath obtained you.

HEC. Alas! alas! let your shorn temples feel
The frequent blow; rend your discoloured cheeks.
Ah me! I am allotted for a slave
To a detestable and treacherous man,
Sworn foe of justice, to that lawless viper,
With double tongue confounding all, ’twixt friends
Exciting bitter hate. Ye Trojan dames,
O shed the sympathizing tear: I sink
Beneath the pressure of relentless fate.

CHOR. Thy doom, O queen, thou know’st: but to what chief,
Hellenian or Achaian, I belong
Inform me.

TAL. Peace! Conduct Cassandra hither
With speed, ye guards, into our general’s hands
When I his captive have delivered up,
That we the rest may portion out. Why gleams
That blazing torch within? would Ilion’s dames
Their chambers fire? what mean they? doomed to leave
This land, and to be borne to Argive shores,
Are they resolved to perish in the flames?
The soul, inspired with an unbounded love
Of freedom, ill sustains such woes. Burst open
The doors, lest, to their honour and the shame
Of Greece, on me the censure fall.

HEC. They kindle
No conflagration, but, with frantic step,
My daughter, lo! Cassandra rushes hither.

CASSANDRA, TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS.

CAS. Avaunt! the sacred flame I bring
With reverential awe profound,
And wave the kindled torch around,
O Hymen, thou benignant king.
The bridegroom comes with jocund pride,
I too am styled a happy bride,
My name through Argos’ streets shall ring,
O Hymen, thou benignant king!
While thou attend’st my father’s bier,
O Hecuba, with many a tear,
While Ilion’s ramparts overthrown
From thee demand th’ incessant groan,
Ere the bright sun withhold his ray,
E’en in the glaring front of day,
I bid the nuptial incense blaze
To thee, O Hymen, thee whose power
Invoking at her bridal hour
The bashful virgin comes. Yon maze
Encircling, ’mid the choral dance,
As ancient usage bids, advance,
And in thy hand a flaming pine,
O mother, brandish. God of wine,
Thy shouting votaries hither bring,
As if in Ilion thou hadst found
Old Priam still a happy king.
Range that holy group around,
O Phœbus, in thy laureate mead,
Thy temple, shall the victim bleed.
Let Hymen, Hymen, Hymen, sound.
My mother, for the dance prepare,
Vault nimbly, and our revels share.
At Hymen’s shrine, my friends, prolong
Your vows, awake th’ ecstatic song;
In honour of my bridal day,
Chant, Phrygian nymphs, the choral lay,
And celebrate the chief whom fate
Ordains to be Cassandra’s mate.

CHOR. Wilt thou not stop the princess, lest she rush
With frantic step amid the Grecian host?

HEC. O Vulcan, wont to light the bridal torch,
Now dost thou brandish an accursed flame;
My soul foresaw not this. Alas! my daughter,
I little thought, that ’midst the din of arms,
Or while we crouch beneath the Argive spear,
Thou couldst have celebrated such espousals.
Give me the torch, for while with frantic speed
Thou rushest on, it trembles in thy hand.
Nor yet have thy afflictions, O my daughter,
Brought back thy wandering reason, thou remain’st
Disordered as before. Ye Trojan dames,
Remove yon blazing pines, and in the stead
Of these her bridal songs let tears express
The anguish of your souls.

CAS. O mother, place
A laureate wreath on my victorious brow,
Exulting lead me to the monarch’s bed.
And if for thee too slowly I advance,
Drag me along by force; for I am now
No more the spouse of Phœbus; but that king
Of Greece, famed Agamemnon, shall in me
Take to his arms a bride more inauspicious
Than even Helen’s self: him will I smite,
And lay his palace waste, in great revenge
For my slain sire and brothers. But I cease
These menaces, and speak not of the axe
Which shall smite me and others, or the conflict
My wedlock shall produce, whence by the hands
Of her own son a mother shall be slain,
And th’ overthrow of Atreus’ guilty house.
This city will I prove to have been happier
Than the victorious Greeks (for though the gods
Inspire, I curb the transports of my soul),
Who for one single woman, to regain
The beauteous Helen only, wasted lives
Unnumbered. Their wise leader, in the cause
Of those he hated, slew whom most he loved;
He to his brother yielded up his daughter,
Joy of his house, for that vile woman’s sake,
Who with her own consent, and not by force,
Was borne away. But at Scamander’s banks
When they arrived, they died, though not by exile
Torn from their country, or their native towers:
But them who in embattled fields were slain
Their children saw not, nor in decent shroud
Were they enwrapped by their loved consorts’ hands,
But lie deserted on a foreign coast:
Their sorrows also who remained at home
Are similar; in widowhood forlorn
Some die; and others, of their own brave sons
Deprived, breed up the children of a stranger;
Nor at their slighted tombs is blood poured forth
To drench the thirsty ground. Their host deserves
Praises like these. ’Tis better not to speak
Of what is infamous, nor shall my Muse
Record the shameful tale. But, first and greatest
Of glories, in their country’s cause expired
The Trojans; the remains of those who fell
In battle, by their friends borne home, obtained
Sepulchral honours in their native soil,
That duteous office kindred hands performed:
While every Phrygian who escaped the sword
Still with his wife and children did reside,
Joy to the Greeks unknown. Now hear the fate
Of Hector, him whom thou bewail’st, esteemed
The bravest of our heroes, by the Greeks
Landing on Ilion’s coast the warrior fell;
In their own country had the foe remained,
His valour ne’er had been displayed: but Paris
Wedded the daughter of imperial Jove,
In her possessing an illustrious bride.
It is the wise man’s duty to avoid
Perilous war. After the die is cast,
He who undaunted meets the fatal stroke,
Adds to his native city fair renown;
But the last moments of a coward shame
The land which gave him birth. Forbear to weep,
My mother, for thy ruined country’s fate;
Weep not because thou seest thy daughter borne
To Agamemnon’s bed, for by these spousals
Our most inveterate foes shall I destroy.

CHOR. How sweetly ’midst the sorrows of thy house
Thou smil’st! ere long perchance wilt thou afford
A melancholy instance that thy strains
Are void of truth.

TAL. Had not Apollo fired
E’en to distraction thy perverted soul,
Thou on my honoured leader, ere he quit
The shores of Ilion, shouldst not unavenged
Pour forth these omens. But, alas! the great,
And they who in th’ opinion of mankind
Are wise, in no respect excel the vulgar.
For the dread chieftain of the Grecian host,
The son of Atreus, loves with boundless passion
This damsel frantic as the Mænades.
Myself am poor, yet would not I accept
A wife like her. Since thou hast lost thy reason,
I to the winds consign thy bitter taunts
’Gainst Argos, with the praises thou bestow’st
On Troy. Thou bride of Agamemnon, come,
Follow me to the fleet. But when Ulysses
Would bear you hence, O Hecuba, obey
The summons, you are destined to attend
A queen called virtuous by all those who come
To Ilion.

CAS. Arrogant, detested slave!
All heralds are like thee, the public scorn,
Crouching with abject deference to some king
Or city. Say’st thou, “To Ulysses’ house
My mother shall be borne?” Of what account
Were then the oracles Apollo gave
Uttered by me his priestess, which declare,
“She here shall die?” I spare the shameful tale.
He knows not, the unhappy Ithacus,
What evils yet await him, in the tears
Of me and every captive Phrygian maid,
While he exults, and deems our misery gain.
Ten more long years elapsed beyond the term
Spent in besieging Ilion, he alone
Shall reach his country; witness thou who dwell’st
’Midst ocean’s straits tempestuous, dire Charybdis,
Ye mountains where on human victims feast
The Cyclops, with Ligurian Circe’s isle,
Whose wand transforms to swine, the billowy deep,
Covered with shipwrecks, the bewitching Lotus,
The sacred Oxen of the Sun, whose flesh
Destined to utter a tremendous voice
The banquet shall embitter: he at length,
In a few words his history to comprise,
Alive must travel to the shades beneath,
And hardly ’scaping from a watery grave
In his own house find evils numberless.
But why do I recount Ulysses’ toils?
Lead on, that I the sooner in the realms
Of Pluto, with that bridegroom may consummate
My nuptials. Ruthless miscreant as thou art,
Thou in the tomb ignobly shalt be plunged
At midnight; nor shall the auspicious beams
Of day illumine thy funereal rites,
O leader of the Grecian host, who deem’st
That thou a mighty conquest hast achieved.
Near to my lord’s remains, and in that vale,
Where down a precipice the torrent foams,
My corse shall to the hungry wolves be thrown,
The corse of Phœbus’ priestess. O ye wreaths
Of him whom best of all the gods I loved,
Adieu, ye symbols of my holy office,
I leave those feasts the scenes of past delight,
Torn from my brows avaunt, for I retain
My chastity unsullied still; the winds
To thee shall waft them, O prophetic king.
Where is your general’s bark, which I am doomed
T’ ascend? the rising breezes shall unfurl
Your sails this instant; for in me ye bear
One of the three Eumenides from Troy.
Farewell, my mother, weep not for my fate,
O my dear country, my heroic brothers,
And aged father, in the realms beneath,
Ere long shall ye receive me: but victorious
Will I descend among the mighty dead,
When I have laid th’ accursed mansions waste
Of our destroyers, Atreus’ impious sons.

[_Exeunt_ CASSANDRA _and_ TALTHYBIUS.

CHOR. Attendants of the aged Hecuba,
Behold ye not your mistress, how she falls
Upon the pavement speechless? Why neglect
To prop her sinking frame! Ye slothful nymphs,
Raise up this woman, whom a weight of years
Bows to the dust.

HEC. Away, and on this spot
Allow me, courteous damsels, to remain:
No longer welcome as in happier days
Are your kind offices; this humble posture,
This fall best suits my present lowly state,
Best suits what I already have endured
And still am doomed to suffer. O ye gods,
In you I call upon no firm allies,
Yet sure ’tis decent to invoke the gods
When we by adverse fortune are opprest.
First, therefore, all the blessings I enjoyed
Would I recount, hence shall my woes demand
The greater pity. Born to regal state,
And with a mighty king in wedlock joined,
A race of valiant sons did I produce;
I speak not of their numbers, but the noblest
Among the Phrygian youths, such as no Trojan,
Nor Grecian, nor barbarian dame could boast:
Them saw I fall beneath the hostile spear,
And at their tomb these tresses cut: their sire,
The venerable Priam, I bewailed not,
From being told of his calamitous fate
By others, but these eyes beheld him slain,
E’en at the altar of Hercæan Jove,
And Ilion taken. I those blooming maids
Have also lost, whom with maternal love
I nurtured for some noble husband’s bed;
They from these arms are torn: nor can I hope
Or to be seen by them, or e’er to see
My children more. But last of all, to crown
My woes, an aged slave, shall I be borne
To Greece; and in such tasks will they employ me
As are most grievous in the wane of life;
Me, who am Hector’s mother, at the door
Stationed to keep the keys, or knead the bread,
And on the pavement stretch my withered limbs,
Which erst reposed upon a regal couch,
And in such tattered vestments, as belie
My former rank, enwrap my wasted frame.
Wretch that I am, who, through one woman’s nuptials,
Have borne, and am hereafter doomed to bear,
Such dreadful ills. O my unhappy daughter,
Cassandra, whom the gods have rendered frantic,
With what sad omens hath thy virgin zone
Been loosed! and where, Polyxena, art thou,
O virgin most unfortunate? but none
Of all my numerous progeny, or male
Or female, comes to aid their wretched mother.
Why, therefore, would ye lift me up? what room
Is there for hope? me who with tender foot
Paced through the streets of Troy, but now a slave,
Drag from the palace to the rushy mat
And stony pillow, that where’er I fall
There may I die, through many, many tears
Exhausted. Of the prosperous and the great
Pronounce none happy till the hour of death.

CHORUS.

ODE.