Chapter II: Part 2

[_The Child, who has started back from_ TALTHYBIUS, _is taken up by one
of the Soldiers and borne back towards the city, while_ ANDROMACHE _is
set again on the Chariot and driven off towards the ships_. TALTHYBIUS
_goes with the Child_.

* * * * *

CHORUS.

[_Strophe_ 1.
In Salamis, filled with the foaming
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 earth
The grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden
Athena had birth;
A soft grey crown for a city
Beloved, 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 hands
For the wrecking of one land only,
Of Ilion, Ilion only,
Most hated of lands!

[_Antistrophe_ 1.
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 Simois' 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 Sire
Uplifted his hand and downcast it
On 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,
Ganymedes, 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 are perished,
And the wind-strewn ways of thy feet:
Yet thy face as aforetime is cherished
Of Zeus, and the breath of it sweet;
Yea, the beauty of Calm is upon it
In houses at rest and afar.
But thy land, He hath wrecked and o'erthrown it
In 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 high
In Ilion, yea, and above
All 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 broken
In Troy, and a people forlorn!
And, lo, in her bowers Tithonus,
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 us
Hath perished from Troy.

* * * * *

[_As the song ceases, the King_ MENELAUS _enters, richly armed and
followed by a bodyguard of Soldiers_. _He is a prey to violent and
conflicting emotions._

MENELAUS.

How bright the face of heaven, and how sweet The air this day, that layeth at my feet The woman that I . . . Nay: 'twas not for her I came. 'Twas for the man, the cozener And thief, that ate with me and stole away My 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 prisoners They keep her, in these huts, among the hordes Of numbered slaves.--The host whose labouring swords Won her, have given her up to me, to fill My pleasure; perchance kill her, or not kill, But lead her home.--Methinks I have foregone The slaying of Helen here in Ilion . . . Over the long seas I will bear her back, And there, there, cast her out to whatso wrack Of angry death they may devise, who know Their dearest dead for her in Ilion.--Ho! Ye soldiers! Up into the chambers where She croucheth! Grip the long blood-reeking hair, And drag her to mine eyes . . . [_Controlling himself._ And when there come Fair 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, and thou high Throne Above the World, whoe'er thou art, unknown And hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be, Or Reason of our Reason; God, to thee I lift my praise, seeing the silent road That bringeth justice ere the end be trod To all that breathes and dies.

MENELAUS (_turning_).

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

HECUBA.

I bless thee, Menelaus, I bless thee, If thou wilt slay her! Only fear to see Her visage, lest she snare thee and thou fall! She snareth strong men's eyes; she snareth tall Cities; and fire from out her eateth up Houses. Such magic hath she, as a cup Of 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
_between them. She comes through them, gentle and unafraid: there is
no disorder in her raiment._

HELEN.

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

MENELAUS (_struggling with his emotion_).

There was not one That scrupled for thee. All, all with one will Gave 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 show I die most wronged and innocent?

MENELAUS.

I seek
To kill thee, woman; not to hear thee speak!

HECUBA.

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

MENELAUS.

'Tis but breath And time. For thy sake, Hecuba, if she need To speak, I grant the prayer. I have no heed Nor mercy--let her know it well--for her!

HELEN.

It may be that, how false or true soe'er Thou 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 heart Holdeth of anger: and in even part Set my wrong and thy wrong, and all that fell. [_Pointing to_ HECUBA. _She_ cometh first, who bare the seed and well Of springing sorrow, when to life she brought Paris: and that old King, who quenched not Quick in the spark, ere yet he woke to slay, The firebrand's image.--But enough: a day Came, and this Paris judged beneath the trees Three Crowns of Life, three diverse Goddesses. The gift of Pallas was of War, to lead His East in conquering battles, and make bleed The hearths of Hellas. Hera held a Throne-- If majesties he craved--to reign alone From Phrygia to the last realm of the West. And Cypris, if he deemed her loveliest, Beyond all heaven, made dreams about my face And for her grace gave me. And, lo! her grace Was judged the fairest, and she stood above Those twain.--Thus was I loved, and thus my love Hath holpen Hellas. No fierce Eastern crown Is o'er your lands, no spear hath cast them down. O, it was well for Hellas! But for me Most ill; caught up and sold across the sea For this my beauty; yea, dishonoured For that which else had been about my head A 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, Strength-is-with-him; whom thou, whom-- O false and light of heart--thou in thy room Didst 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 forgot My home and land and all I loved, to fly With 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 done Hath its own pardon. . . . One word yet thou hast, Methinks, of righteous seeming. When at last The 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 I To the Argive ships? . . . Ah, how I strove to fly! The old Gate-Warden could have told thee all, My husband, and the watchers from the wall; It was not once they took me, with the rope Tied, and this body swung in the air, to grope Its way toward _thee_, from that dim battlement. Ah, husband still, how shall thy hand be bent To 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, this That might have been my glory, lo, it is A stamp that God hath burned, of slavery! Alas! and if thou cravest still to be As 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 hand And heart so fell: it maketh me afraid.

HECUBA.

Meseems her goddesses first cry mine aid Against these lying lips! . . . Not Hera, nay, Nor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay, To barter their own folk, Argos and brave Athens, to be trod down, the Phrygian's slave, All for vain glory and a shepherd's prize On Ida! Wherefore should great Hera's eyes So hunger to be fair? _She_ doth not use To seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus. And maiden Pallas . . . did some strange god's face Beguile her, that she craved for loveliness, Who chose from God one virgin gift above All gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love? Ah, deck not out thine own heart's evil springs By making spirits of heaven as brutish things And cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all! And Cypris must take ship--fantastical! Sail with my son and enter at the gate To seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sate At peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and all Amyclae with thee, under Ilion's wall. My son was passing beautiful, beyond His peers; and thine own heart, that saw and conned His face, became a spirit enchanting thee. For all wild things that in mortality Have being, are Aphrodite; and the name She bears in heaven is born and writ of them. Thou sawest him in gold and orient vest Shining, and lo, a fire about thy breast Leapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things, Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings Were come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled The 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 son Took thee, thou sayst, and striving. . . . Yet not one In Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer Rang from thy rooms that night. . . . Castor was there To hear thee, and his brother: both true men, Not yet among the stars! And after, when Thou camest here to Troy, and in thy track Argos and all its anguish and the rack Of war--Ah God!--perchance men told thee 'Now The Greek prevails in battle': then wouldst thou Praise Menelaus, that my son might smart, Striving with that old image in a heart Uncertain still. Then Troy had victories: And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes Watched Fortune's eyes, to follow hot where she Led first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty. Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall Far, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall! Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay, Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way Of the sword, that any woman honest-souled Had sought long since, loving her lord of old? Often and often did I charge thee; 'Go, My daughter; go thy ways. My sons will know New loves. I will give aid, and steal thee past The Argive watch. O give us peace at last, Us and our foes!' But out thy spirit cried As at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy pride In Alexander's house, and O, 'twas sweet To hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet. They were great things to thee! . . . And comest thou now Forth, 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 crown Of Justice. Slay this woman, and upraise The law for evermore: she that betrays Her husband's bed, let her be judged and die.

LEADER.

Be strong, O King; give judgment worthily For thee and thy great house. Shake off thy long Reproach; 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 went Forth to a stranger's bed. And all her fair Tale of enchantment, 'tis a thing of air! . . . [_Turning furiously upon_ HELEN. Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yet With stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt Be paid at last. And ere this night is o'er Thy 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 phantasies Of Heaven. Remember all, and slay me not!

HECUBA.

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

MENELAUS.

Peace, aged 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 fain Hate it! . . . Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done. Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own. . . . Thou counsellest very well . . . And when we come To Argos, then . . . O then some pitiless doom Well-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind Once for all time the law on womankind Of faithfulness! . . . 'Twill be no easy thing, God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling A chill on the dreams of women, though they be Wilder of wing and loathed more than she!

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

* * * * *

CHORUS.

_Some Women._

[_Strophe_ 1.
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 wreathed 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?

_Others._

[_Antistrophe_ 1.
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 throned in the sky,
Throned 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 dominions
Driftest with waterless lips,
Unburied; and me the ships
Shall bear o'er the bitter brine,
Storm-birds upon angry pinions,
Where the towers of the Giants shine
O'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 broods
Over the sundered floods
Of 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 white
And jagged, with wild sea-light
And 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,
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 Pitane;
For her face was a dark desire
Upon Greece, and shame like fire,
And her dead are welling, welling,
From red Simois 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 hour
Have hurled to death from Ilion's tower.

TALTHYBIUS.

One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet, Lapping the wave, to gather the last freight Of Pyrrhus' spoils for Thessaly. The chief Himself long since hath parted, much in grief For Peleus' sake, his grandsire, whom, men say, Acastus, Pelias' son, in war array Hath driven to exile. Loath enough before Was he to linger, and now goes the more In haste, bearing Andromache, his prize. 'Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes, Weeping her fatherland, as o'er the wave She gazed, and speaking words to Hector's grave. Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done For 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 dread Of 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 Peleus' hall Or that dark bridal chamber, that the wall May 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 hands She bade me lay him, to be swathed in bands Of death and garments, such as rest to thee In these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she Hath gone her ways, and, for her master's haste, May no more fold the babe unto his rest. Howbeit, so soon as he is garlanded And robed, we will heap earth above his head And lift our sails. . . . See all be swiftly done, As thou art bidden. I have saved thee one Labour. For as I passed Scamander's stream Hard by, I let the waters run on him, And cleansed his wounds.--See, I will go forth now And break the hard earth for his grave: so thou And I will haste together, to set free Our 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 lie Here on the ground. 'Tis bitter that mine eye Should see it. . . . O ye Argives, was your spear Keen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fear This babe? 'Twas a strange murder for brave men! For fear this babe some day might raise again His 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 not Wisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought. . . . Ah, what a death hath found thee, little one! Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known Strong youth and love and all the majesty Of godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee As of one blessed . . . could in any wise These days know blessedness. But now thine eyes Have seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soul No knowledge had nor usage of the whole Rich life that lapt thee round. . . . Poor little child! Was it our ancient wall, the circuit piled By loving Gods, so savagely hath rent Thy curls, these little flowers innocent That were thy mother's garden, where she laid Her kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayed Grins white above--Ah heaven, I will not see! Ye tender arms, the same dear mould have ye As his; how from the shoulder loose ye drop And weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hope And closed for ever! What false words ye said At daybreak, when he crept into my bed, Called me kind names, and promised: 'Grandmother, When thou art dead, I will cut close my hair, And lead out all the captains to ride by Thy tomb.' Why didst thou cheat me so? 'Tis I, Old, homeless, childless, that for thee must shed Cold tears, so young, so miserably dead. Dear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet, The nursing in my lap; and O, the sweet Falling asleep together! All is gone. How should a poet carve the funeral stone To tell thy story true? 'There lieth here A babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fear Slew him.' Aye, Greece will bless the tale it tells! Child, they have left thee beggared of all else In Hector's house; but one thing shalt thou keep, This war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep. Alas, thou guardian true of Hector's fair Left arm, how art thou masterless! And there I see his handgrip printed on thy hold; And deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolled In battle from the brows and beard of him, Drop after drop, are writ about thy rim. Go, bring them--such poor garments hazardous As these days leave. God hath not granted us Wherewith 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 years Dance like an idiot in the wind! And none By any strength hath his own fortune won.

[_During these lines several Women are seen approaching with garlands
and raiment in their hands._

LEADER.

Lo these, who hear thee raiment harvested From Ilion's slain, to fold upon the dead.

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

HECUBA.

O not in pride for speeding of the car Beyond thy peers, not for the shaft of war True aimed, as Phrygians use; not any prize Of joy for thee, nor splendour in men's eyes, Thy father's mother lays these offerings About thee, from the many fragrant things That were all thine of old. But now no more. One woman, loathed of God, hath broke the door And robbed thy treasure-house, and thy warm breath Made 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 he
Dead here, our prince to be,
And lord of the land?

HECUBA.

Glory of Phrygian raiment, which my thought Kept for thy bridal day with some far-sought Queen of the East, folds thee for evermore. And thou, grey Mother, Mother-Shield that bore A thousand days of glory, thy last crown Is here. . . . Dear Hector's shield! Thou shalt lie down Undying with the dead, and lordlier there Than 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 performing
a funeral rite symbolically staunching the dead Child's wounds_.

HECUBA.

I make thee whole;
I bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul.
This wound and this I heal with linen white:
O emptiness of aid! . . . Yet let the rite
Be 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!
Thine are we all. Oh, ere thy bosom break . . .

HECUBA.

Lo, I have seen the open hand of God; And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate, Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell And bulls' blood on the altars! . . . All is well. Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust Our high things low and shook our hills as dust, We had not been this splendour, and our wrong An everlasting music for the song Of earth and heaven! Go, women: lay our dead In his low sepulchre. He hath his meed Of robing. And, methinks, but little care Toucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there Have rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we, That dream, we living and our vanity!

[_The Women bear out the dead Child upon the shield, singing, when
presently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of the
City._

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 shock
Of 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 keep Of Priam's City, let your torches sleep No more! Up, fling the fire into her heart! Then have we done with Ilion, and may part In joy to Hellas from this evil land. And ye--so hath one word two faces--stand, Daughters of Troy, till on your ruined wall The echo of my master's trumpet call In 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 wait To 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 ways Are filled with fire! Bear me, O aged feet, A little nearer: I must gaze, and greet My poor town ere she fall. Farewell, farewell! O thou whose breath was mighty on the swell Of orient winds, my Troy! Even thy name Shall soon be taken from thee. Lo, the flame Hath thee, and we, thy children, pass away To 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 the Soldiers._

TALTHYBIUS.

Back! Thou art drunken with thy miseries, Poor woman!--Hold her fast, men, till it please Odysseus that she come. She was his lot Chosen 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, O wherefore fleest thou,
Lord of the Phrygian, Father that made us?
'Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us?
'Tis we, thy children! Seest thou, seest thou?

_Others._

He seeth, 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 with
her 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, 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 day
Dawneth to slavery!

CHORUS.

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

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

NOTES ON THE TROJAN WOMEN

P. 11, l. 5, Poseidon.]--In the _Iliad_ Poseidon is the enemy of Troy, here the friend. This sort of confusion comes from the fact that the Trojans and their Greek enemies were largely of the same blood, with the same tribal gods. To the Trojans, Athena the War-Goddess was, of course, _their_ War-Goddess, the protectress of their citadel. Poseidon, god of the sea and its merchandise, and Apollo (possibly a local shepherd god?), were their natural friends and had actually built their city wall for love of the good old king, Laomedon. Zeus, the great father, had Mount Ida for his 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 explained away. In the _Iliad_ generally Athena is the proper War-Goddess of the Greeks. Poseidon had indeed built the wall for Laomedon, but Laomedon had cheated him of his reward--as afterwards he cheated Heracles, and the Argonauts and everybody else! So Poseidon hated Troy. Troy is chiefly defended by the barbarian Ares, the oriental Aphrodite, by its own rivers Scamander and Simois and suchlike inferior or unprincipled gods.

Yet traces of the other tradition remain. Homer knows that Athena is specially worshipped in Troy. He knows that Apollo, who had built the wall with Poseidon, and had the same experience of Laomedon, still loves the Trojans. Zeus himself, though eventually in obedience to destiny he permits the fall of the city, nevertheless has a great tenderness towards it.

P. 11, l. 11, A steed marvellous.]--See below, on p. 36.

P. 12, l. 25, I go forth from great Ilion, &c.]--The correct ancient doctrine. When your gods forsook you, there was no more hope. Conversely, when your state became desperate, evidently your gods were forsaking you. From another point of view, also, when the city was desolate and unable to worship its gods, the gods of that city were no more.

P. 12, l. 34, Laconian Tyndarid.]--Helen was the child of Zeus and Leda, and sister of Castor and Polydeuces; but her human father was Tyndareus, an old Spartan king. She is treated as "a prisoner and a prize," _i.e._, as a captured enemy, not as a Greek princess delivered from the Trojans.

P. 12, l. 40, In secret slain.]--Because the Greeks were ashamed of the bloody deed. See below, p. 42, and the scene on this subject in the _Hecuba_.

P. 12, l. 42, Cassandra.]--In the _Agamemnon_ the story is more clearly told, that Cassandra was loved by Apollo and endowed by him with the power of prophecy; then in some way she rejected or betrayed him, and he set upon her the curse that though seeing the truth she should never be believed. The figure of Cassandra in this play is not inconsistent with that version, but it makes a different impression. She is here a dedicated virgin, and her mystic love for Apollo does not seem to have suffered any breach.

P. 13, l. 47, Pallas.]--(See above.) The historical explanation of the Trojan Pallas and the Greek Pallas is simple enough, but as soon as the two are mythologically personified and made one, there emerges just such a bitter and ruthless goddess as Euripides, in his revolt against the current mythology, loved to depict. But it is not only the mythology that he is attacking. He seems really to feel that if there are conscious gods ruling the world, they are cruel or "inhuman" beings.

P. 15, l. 70.]--Ajax the Less, son of Oileus, either ravished or attempted to ravish Cassandra (the story occurs in both forms) while she was clinging to the Palladium or image of Pallas. It is one of the great typical sins of the Sack of Troy, often depicted on vases.

P. 17, l. 123, Faces of ships.]--Homeric ships had prows shaped and painted to look like birds' or beasts' heads. A ship was always a wonderfully live and vivid thing to the Greek poets. (Cf. p. 64.)

P. 18, l. 132, Castor.]--Helen's brother: the Eurotas, the river of her home, Sparta.

P. 18, l. 135, Fifty seeds.]--Priam had fifty children, nineteen of them children of Hecuba (_Il._ vi. 451, &c.).

P. 22, l. 205, Pirene.]--The celebrated spring on the hill of Corinth. Drawing water was a typical employment of slaves.

P. 22, l. 219 ff., Theseus' land, &c.]--Theseus' land is Attica. The poet, in the midst of his bitterness over the present conduct of his city, clings the more to its old fame for humanity. The "land high-born" where the Peneues flows round the base of Mount Olympus in northern Thessaly is one of the haunts of Euripides' dreams in many plays. Cf. _Bacchae_, 410 (p. 97 in my translation). Mount Aetna fronts the "Tyrians' citadel," _i.e._, Carthage, built by the Phoenicians. The "sister land" is the district of Sybaris in South Italy, where the river Crathis has, or had, a red-gold colour, which makes golden the hair of men and the fleeces of sheep; and the water never lost its freshness.

P. 23, l. 235.]--Talthybius is a loyal soldier with every wish to be kind. But he is naturally in good spirits over the satisfactory end of the war, and his tact is not sufficient to enable him to understand the Trojan Women's feelings. Yet in the end, since he has to see and do the cruelties which his Chiefs only order from a distance, the real nature of his work forces itself upon him, and he feels and speaks at times almost like a Trojan. It is worth noticing how the Trojan Women generally avoid addressing him. (Cf. pp. 48, 67, 74.)

P. 24, l. 256, The haunted keys (literally, "with God through them, penetrating them").]--Cassandra was his Key-bearer, holding the door of his Holy Place. (Cf. _Hip._ 540, p. 30.)

P. 25, l. 270, She hath a toil, &c.]--There is something true and pathetic about this curious blindness which prevents Hecuba from understanding "so plain a riddle." (Cf. below, p. 42.) She takes the watching of a Tomb to be some strange Greek custom, and does not seek to have it explained further.

P. 26, l. 277, Odysseus.]--In Euripides generally Odysseus is the type of the successful unscrupulous man, as soldier and politician--the incarnation of what the poet most hated. In Homer of course he is totally different.

P. 27, l. 301, Burn themselves and die.]--Women under these circumstances did commit suicide in Euripides' day, as they have ever since. It is rather curious that none of the characters of the play, not even Andromache, kills herself. The explanation must be that no such suicide was recorded in the tradition (though cf. below, on p. 33); a significant fact, suggesting that in the Homeric age, when this kind of treatment of women captives was regular, the victims did not suffer quite so terribly under it.

P. 28, l. 310, 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 he is the sign both of marriage and of death, of sunrise and of the consuming fire. The full Moon was specially connected with marriage ceremonies.

P. 30, l. 356, Loxias.]--The name of Apollo as an Oracular God.

Pp. 30-34, ll. 360-460, Cassandra's visions.]--The allusions are to the various sufferings of Odysseus, as narrated in the _Odyssey_, and to the tragedies of the house of Atreus, as told for instance in Aeschylus' _Oresteia_. Agamemnon together with Cassandra, and in part because he brought Cassandra, was murdered--felled with an axe--on his return home by his wife Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Their bodies were cast into a 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.

P. 30, l. 370, This their king so wise.]--Agamemnon made the war for the sake of his brother Menelaus, and slew his daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice at Aulis, to enable the ships to sail for Troy.

P. 31, ll. 394, 398, Hector and Paris.]--The point about Hector is clear, but as to Paris, the feeling that, after all, it was a glory that he and the half-divine Helen loved each other, is scarcely to be found anywhere else in Greek literature. (Cf., however, Isocrates' "Praise of Helen.") Paris and Helen were never idealised like Launcelot and Guinevere, or Tristram and Iseult.

P. 32, l. 423, A wise queen.]--Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus.

P. 33, l. 425, 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: Ker-ukes] as though from [Greek: Ker] the death-spirit, "the one thing abhorred of all mortal men.")

P. 33, l. 430, That in this place she dies.]--The death of Hecuba is connected with a certain heap of stones on the shore of the Hellespont, called _Kunos-sema_, or "Dog's Tomb." According to one tradition (Eur. _Hec._ 1259 ff.) she threw herself off the ship into the sea; according to another she was stoned by the Greeks for her curses upon the fleet; but in both she is changed after death into a sort of Hell-hound. M. Victor Berard suggests that the dog first comes into the story owing to the accidental 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 (_Pheniciens et Odyssee_, i. 213). Of course in the present passage there is no direct reference to these wild sailor-stories.

P. 34, l. 456, The wind comes quick.]--_i.e._ The storm of the Prologue. Three Powers: the three Erinyes.

P. 36, l. 511 ff., Chorus.]--The Wooden Horse is always difficult to understand, and seems to have an obscuring effect on the language of poets who treat of it. I cannot help suspecting that the story arises from a real historical incident misunderstood. Troy, we are told, was still holding out after ten years and could not be taken, until at last by the divine suggestions 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 by Odysseus, got inside it and waited. The Greeks made a show of giving up the siege and sailed away, but only as far as Tenedos. The Trojans came out and found the horse, and after wondering greatly what it was meant for and what to do with it, made a breach in their walls and dragged it into the Citadel as a thank-offering to Pallas. In the night the Greeks returned; the heroes in the horse came out and opened the gates, and Troy was captured.

It seems possible that the "device" really was the building of a wooden siege-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 a rare and extraordinary device, because they exist on early Assyrian monuments; (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 of Macedon, 340 B.C.)

It is noteworthy that in the great picture by Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi "above the wall of Troy appears the head alone of the Wooden Horse" (_Paus._ x. 26). Aeschylus also (_Ag._ 816) has some obscure phrases pointing in the same direction: "A horse's brood, a shield-bearing people, launched with a leap about the Pleiads' setting, sprang clear above the wall," &c. Euripides here treats the horse metaphorically as a sort of war-horse trampling Troy.

P. 37, l. 536, Her that spareth not, Heaven's yokeless rider.]--Athena like a northern Valkyrie, as often in the _Iliad_. If one tries to imagine what Athena, the War-Goddess worshipped by the Athenian mob, was like--what a mixture of bad national passions, of superstition and statecraft, of slip-shod unimaginative idealisation--one may partly understand why Euripides made her so evil. Allegorists and high-minded philosophers might make Athena entirely noble by concentrating their minds on the beautiful elements in the tradition, and forgetting or explaining away all that was savage; he was determined to pin her down to the worst facts recorded of her, and let people worship such a being if they liked!

P. 38, l. 554, To Artemis.]--Maidens at the shrine of Artemis are a fixed datum in the tradition. (Cf. _Hec._ 935 ff.)

P. 39 ff., l. 576 ff., Andromache and Hecuba.]--This very beautiful scene is perhaps marred to most modern readers by an element which is merely a part of the convention of ancient mourning. Each of the mourners cries: "There is 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, after all, what they expected of each other; and I believe the same convention exists in most places where keening or wailing is an actual practice.

P. 41, l. 604, Even as the sound of a song.]--I have filled in some words which seem to be missing in the Greek here.

Pp. 41-50, Andromache.]--This character is wonderfully studied. She seems to me to be a woman who has not yet shown much character or perhaps had very intense experience, but is only waiting for sufficiently great trials to become a heroine and a saint. There is still a marked element of conventionality in her description of her life with Hector; but one feels, as she speaks, that she is already past it. Her character is built up of "_Sophrosyne_," of self-restraint and the love of goodness--qualities which often seem second-rate or even tiresome until they have a sufficiently great field in which to act. Very characteristic is her resolution to make the best, and not the worst, of her life in Pyrrhus' house, with all its horror of suffering and apparent degradation. So is the self-conquest by which she deliberately refrains from cursing her child's murderers, for the sake of the last poor remnant of good she can still do to him, in getting him buried. The nobility of such a character depends largely, of course, on the intensity of the feelings conquered.

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

Observe, too, what a climax of drama is reached by means of the very fact 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 less developed.

P. 51, l. 799 ff., In Salamis, filled with the foaming, &c.]--A striking instance of the artistic value of the Greek chorus in relieving an intolerable strain. The relief provided is something much higher than what we ordinarily call "relief"; it is a stream of pure poetry and music in key with the sadness of the surrounding scene, yet, in a way, happy just because it is beautiful. (Cf. note on _Hippolytus_, l. 732.)

The argument of the rather difficult lyric is: "This is not the first time Troy has been taken. Long ago Heracles made war against the old king Laomedon, because he had not given him the immortal steeds that he promised. And Telamon joined him; Telamon who might have been happy in his island of Salamis, among the bees and the pleasant waters, looking over the strait to the olive-laden hills of Athens, the beloved City! And they took ship and slew Laomedon. Yea, twice Zeus has destroyed Ilion!

(Second part.) Is it all in vain that our Trojan princes have been loved by the Gods? Ganymedes pours the nectar of Zeus in his banquets, his face never troubled, though his motherland is burned with fire! And, to say nothing of Zeus, how can the Goddess of Morning rise and shine upon us uncaring? She loved Tithonus, son of Laomedon, and bore him up from us in a chariot to be her husband in the skies. But all that once made them love us is gone!"

P. 52, l. 833, Pools of thy bathing.]--It is probable that Ganymedes was himself originally a pool or a spring on Ida, now a pourer of nectar in heaven.

Pp. 54-63, Menelaus and Helen.]--The meeting of Menelaus and Helen after the taking of Troy was naturally one of the great moments in the heroic legend. The versions, roughly speaking, divide themselves into two. In one (_Little Iliad_, Ar. _Lysistr._ 155, Eur. _Andromache_ 628) Menelaus is about to kill her, but as she bares her bosom to the sword, the sword falls from his hand. In the other (Stesichorus, _Sack of Ilion_ (?)) Menelaus or some one else takes her to the ships to be stoned, and the men cannot stone her. As Quintus of Smyrna says, "They looked on her as they would on a God!"

Both versions have affected Euripides here. And his Helen has just the magic of the Helen of legend. That touch of the supernatural which belongs of right to the Child of Heaven--a mystery, a gentleness, a strange absence of fear or wrath--is felt through all her words. One forgets to think of her guilt or innocence; she is too wonderful a being to judge, too precious to destroy. This supernatural element, being the thing which, if true, separates Helen from other women, and in a way redeems her, is for that reason exactly what Hecuba denies. The controversy has a certain eternal quality about it: the hypothesis of heavenly enchantment and the hypothesis of mere bad behaviour, neither of them entirely convincing! But the very curses of those that hate her make a kind of superhuman atmosphere about Helen in this play; she fills the background like a great well-spring of pain.

This Menelaus, however, is rather different from the traditional Menelaus. Besides being the husband of Helen, he is the typical Conqueror, for whose sake the Greeks fought and to whom the central prize 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 bitterness with which he is treated, his conquest turning to ashes in his mouth, and his love a confused turmoil of hunger and hatred, contemptible and yet terrible.

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

P. 54, l. 884, Thou deep base of the world.]--These lines, as a piece of religious speculation were very famous in antiquity. And dramatically they are most important. All through the play Hecuba is a woman of remarkable intellectual power and of fearless thought. She does not definitely deny the existence of the Olympian gods, like some characters in Euripides, but she treats them as beings that have betrayed her, and whose name she scarcely deigns to speak. It is the very godlessness of Hecuba's fortitude that makes it so terrible and, properly regarded, so noble. (Cf. p. 35 "Why call on things so weak?" and p. 74 "They know, they know . . .") Such Gods were as a matter of fact the moral inferiors of good 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 cease believing in his existence at all. (Hecuba's answer to Helen is not inconsistent with this, it is only less characteristic.)