Troades

HECUBA

Whoever trusts in a throne and, mighty, lords it in a great hall, nor fears the fickle gods, and has given his soul over, credulous, to glad fortune, let him look on me and on you, Troy: never has chance given greater proof on how frail a footing the proud stand. The pillar of powerful Asia, overthrown, has fallen, the famous handiwork of the gods; to whose aid came even he who drinks the cold Tanais that spreads its seven mouths, and she who, looking out upon her neighbor, the roving Scythians, strikes the Pontic bank with her husbandless bands, and he who, first receiving the new-born day, mingles the warm Tigris with the reddening sea — it has been cut down with the sword, Pergamum has fallen upon itself. See, the high glories of the heaped-up wall lie low, the buildings burnt; the flames ring the palace round, and all the house of Assaracus smokes far and wide. The flame does not hold back the greedy hands of the victor: burning Troy is plundered, nor does the sky lie open through the surging smoke; covered as by a dense cloud, the day, black with Ilian ash, lies foul. The victor stands, greedy of rage, and measures slow Ilium with his eyes, and at last, savage, forgives the ten years; he shudders even at her, stricken, and though he sees her conquered, scarcely believes she could have been conquered. The ravager snatches the Dardanian spoils; a thousand ships cannot hold the booty.

I call to witness the divinity of the gods hostile to me, and the ashes of my country, and you, ruler of the Phrygians, whom Troy covers, buried with her whole realm, and your shade, by whose standing Ilium stood, and you, great throngs of my children, free now, you lesser shades: whatever adversity has befallen, whatever ills the Phoebean priestess, raving with frenzied mouth, foretold while the god forbade them to be believed, I, Hecuba, saw first; pregnant, I did not keep my fears silent, and was a vain prophetess before Cassandra. Not the wary Ithacan, nor the Ithacan's companion by night, scattered these fires among you, nor deceitful Sinon: this fire is mine; with my torches you burn. But why do you bewail the ruins of an overthrown city, long-lived old age? Look back, unhappy one, to these fresh sorrows: Troy is now an old grief. I have seen the accursed horror of a royal slaughter, and at the very altars a greater crime committed by the arms of Aeacus' son, when, fierce, with his left hand twisting back the king's head by the twisted hair, he buried the abominable steel deep in the wound; and when, driven home, the sword had received it, the blade came back, dry, from the old man's throat. Whom could he not appease from his savage slaughter — one pressing the last hinge of mortal life, and the gods above, witnesses of the crime, and some sacred thing of a fallen kingdom? That father of so many kings, Priam, lacks a tomb and wants a flame, though Troy is burning. Yet it is not enough for the gods: see, the urn, choosing a master for the daughters and brides of Priam, draws lots, and I, a cheap prize, shall follow. This one betroths to himself the wife of Hector, this one desires the wife of Helenus, this one Antenor's; nor is one lacking, Cassandra, to seek your bed. My lot is feared; I alone am a dread to the Greeks. Do the laments cease? My band of captives, strike your breasts with your palms and give your wailing, and perform Troy's due rites. Long since let fatal Ide resound, the home of the dread judge.

CHORUS OF TROJAN WOMEN, HECUBA

CHORUS: It is no untaught throng, untrained in tears, that you bid mourn: this we have done through unbroken years, ever since the Phrygian guest touched Greek Amyclae and the pine, sacred to the mother Cybele, crossed the deep with its untroubled freight. Ten times has Ide grown white with snow, ten times has it been stripped bare for our pyres, and on the Sigean fields the trembling reaper has cut the tenth crop of corn, since no day lacks its mourning. But a new cause supplies the weeping: go to your beatings, and lift, queen, your wretched hand. We, the common throng, will follow our mistress, cheap: we are not untaught to mourn.

HECUBA: Faithful companions of my fortunes, loose your hair, let your locks flow over your sad necks, foul with the warm dust of Troy: fill your hands — this much from Troy it is allowed to take. Let the throng bare its arms; slip the robe, draw close the folds, and let the body lie open down to the womb. For what wedlock do you veil your breasts, captive modesty? Let the mantle gird your loosened tunics, let the frenzied hand be free for the blows of frequent beating — this garb pleases, it pleases: I recognize the Trojan throng. Let the old griefs return again, surpass your wonted custom of weeping: we weep for Hector.

CHORUS: We have all loosed our hair, torn with many a death; the locks are let down free of the knot, and the hot ash has sprinkled our faces. The garment falls from our bared shoulders and, drawn up, covers only the lowest flank; now the naked breasts call to our right hands: now, now, grief, bring forth your cheap laments. Let the Rhoetean shores resound with our beating, and let Echo, who dwells in the hollow mountains, not, as she is wont, give back briefly the last words only, but render the whole groan of Troy: let all the sea and the air hear it. Rage, hands, beat the breast with vast blows, I am not content with the wonted sound: we weep for Hector.

HECUBA: For you my right hand strikes my arms and strikes my bloody shoulders, for you my hand beats my head, for you with a mother's palms my breasts lie torn: let the scar flow, and run with much blood, whatever scar I have made in my grief, torn open at your death. Pillar of your country, stay of the fates, you were the bulwark of the weary Phrygians, you were the wall, and on your shoulders that city stood, propped for ten years: with you it fell, and the last day of Hector was the same as his country's. Turn your laments: pour out your weeping for Priam; enough has Hector.

CHORUS: Receive, ruler of Phrygia, our beating, receive our weeping, twice-captured old man. Nothing did Troy suffer once with you for king, twice were the Dardanian walls beaten with Greek iron, and twice it suffered the quivers of Hercules. After the bodies of Hecuba's children were borne out, and the flock of kings, last of all you, the father, close the funerals, and, slain as a victim to great Jove, you press the Sigean shores, a trunk.

HECUBA: Turn your tears elsewhere: the death of my Priam is not to be pitied, daughters of Ilium. Call Priam blessed, all of you: free he goes down to the lowest shades, nor will he ever bear on his conquered neck the Greek yoke; he does not see the two sons of Atreus, nor does he behold deceitful Ulysses; he will not, the prey of an Argive triumph, set his neck beneath the trophies; he will not give his hands, unused to bonds, behind his back, nor, following the chariots of Agamemnon, wearing golden fetters on his right hand, become a spectacle to broad Mycenae.

CHORUS: We all call Priam blessed: departing, he took his realm with him; now in the safe shades of the Elysian grove he wanders, and among the pious, blessed souls, seeks his Hector. Blessed is Priam, blessed whoever, dying in war, took all things, consumed, with him.

TALTHYBIUS, CHORUS

TALTHYBIUS: O ever-long delay of the Greeks in port, whether they wish to seek war or to seek their country!

CHORUS: Tell us what cause makes delay for the ships and the Greeks, what god closes the homeward ways.

TALTHYBIUS: My soul quakes, a horrid trembling shakes my limbs. Portents greater than truth — they scarcely win belief — I saw myself, I saw them. Now Titan was grazing the topmost ridges at his rising, day had conquered night, when suddenly the earth, groaning with a hidden bellow, shaken, drew all its caverns from the depths; the woods moved their heads, and the lofty grove thundered with a vast crash, and the sacred wood; the rocks of Ide fell from the broken ridges. Nor did the earth alone tremble: the sea too felt its Achilles present and laid its waters low. Then the riven valley opened immense caverns, and the chasm of Erebus, the earth broken, gave a passable road to the upper world and raised the tomb. The vast shade of the Thessalian leader flashed forth, such as when, rehearsing his Thracian arms already, Troy, for your fates, he laid low, or struck down the gleaming son of Neptune with his hoary hair, or when, raging amid the lines with violent war, he choked the rivers with bodies, and seeking a path, slow Xanthus wandered with its bloody shoal, or when, victor, he stood in his proud chariot and drove the reins, dragging Hector and Troy. The sound of the angry one filled all the shore: "Go, go, you cowards, bear off the honors owed to my shade, loose the ungrateful ships that are to go across our seas. At no small cost has Greece atoned the anger of Achilles, and at a great cost shall atone: let Polyxena, betrothed to my ashes, be slaughtered by Pyrrhus' hand and bedew the tomb." Having spoken thus, he plunged the day in deep night and, seeking back to Dis, joined again the vast cavern, the earth closing. The calm of the sea lies motionless, the wind has cast off its threats, and the sea murmurs, placid, with a gentle wave, and from the deep the chorus of Tritons sang a marriage-hymn.

PYRRHUS, AGAMEMNON, CALCHAS

PYRRHUS: When, about to return, you gave your glad sails to the sea, Achilles slipped from your mind, by whose single hand Troy was shaken; whatever delay was added, once he was removed, it stood doubtful where it would fall. Though you wish to give what is asked, and hasten to give it, you will give it too late: now all the leaders have taken their reward. What lesser meed can be given to so great a valor? Or did he deserve little, who, bidden to flee the war and sitting to spend his life in a long old age and to surpass the years of the Pylian elder, threw off his mother's wiles and her false garments, and confessed himself a man by his arms? Telephus, ungoverned in his inhospitable realm, while he denied entry into fierce Mysia, steeped his hand, untried, in royal blood, and felt the same hand strong and gentle. Thebes fell, Eetion saw his own realm captured, conquered; with a like disaster was overthrown little Lyrnesos, set on a lofty ridge, and the land made famous by captured Briseis, and Chryse, the cause of strife among the kings, lies low, and Tenedos, known to fame, and Scyros, which, fertile with rich pasture, nurses the Thracian flocks, and Lesbos, cleaving the Aegean strait, and Cilla dear to Phoebus. What of the lands that Caycus washes, lifting its flood with spring waters? This so great destruction of nations, this so great terror, so many cities scattered like a vast whirlwind, would be another's glory and his highest renown: it is Achilles' road; thus my father came and waged such great wars, while he prepared for war. To pass over his other merits, would not Hector alone have been enough? My father conquered Ilium, you destroyed it. It pleases me to follow the famous praises and the bright deeds of my great sire: Hector lay slain before his father's eyes, and Memnon before his uncle's; for whose mourning his parent brought forth the sorrowful day with a pallid face; and the victor shuddered at the example of his own work, and Achilles learned that the sons of a goddess too can die. Then the savage Amazon, the last terror, fell. You owe it to Achilles, if you reckon his merits worthily, even if he should seek a maiden from Mycenae and Argos. Do you hesitate, and now suddenly disapprove what was approved, and think it savage to slaughter the daughter of Priam to the son of Peleus? But your own daughter, as a parent, you sacrificed for Helen: I demand the wonted and the done.

AGAMEMNON: It is a fault of youth not to be able to govern one's impulse; in others, this first fever of their age carries them away, in Pyrrhus, his father's spirit. The pride, once, and the threats of the swollen son of Aeacus I bore patiently: the more you can do, the more you should suffer patiently. Why with dire slaughter do you besprinkle the noble shade of a famous leader? This first it is fitting to know, what a victor ought to do, what the vanquished to suffer. No one has long held violent power; moderate power endures: and the higher Fortune has raised and lifted human estate, the more it befits the fortunate to restrain himself and to tremble at the changing chances, fearing the gods who favor too much. By a moment's overthrow, I have learned, in conquering. Does Troy make us too proud and fierce? We Greeks stand in this place from which she fell. I confess, once, ungoverned, I bore myself too high, proud of my realm; but that spirit which this cause — the favor of Fortune — could have given to others, this same has broken. You make me proud, Priam, you make me afraid. Should I think the scepter anything but a name hid by an empty splendor, and a brow seemly with a false band? A brief chance shall snatch these away, nor, perhaps, with a thousand ships or ten years: fortune does not threaten all so slowly. For my part I will confess — let it be permitted to say this with your peace, Argive land — I wished the Phrygians crushed and conquered: to ruin them and lay them level with the soil, would that I had prevented! But by the reins they could not be governed, both rage and the burning enemy and victory committed to the night: whatever could seem unworthy or savage to any, this grief did, and the darkness, by which fury itself is goaded on, and the swords, joyous, whose lust, once stained, is frenzied. Let whatever can survive of overthrown Troy remain: enough penalty has been exacted, and more. That a royal maiden should fall and be given as a gift to a tomb and bedew the ashes, and that they should call so atrocious a deed of slaughter a marriage — I will not suffer it. On me returns the blame of all: he who, when he can, does not forbid a sin, commands it.

PYRRHUS: Shall the shade of Achilles bear no reward?

AGAMEMNON: It shall, and all shall sing of him with praises, and unknown lands shall hear his great name. But if his ash is solaced by blood poured upon it, let the rich necks of the Phrygian flocks be cut, and let blood flow that is tearful to no mother. What custom is this, when, for funeral rites, a man is spent for a man? Take away the odium and hatred from your father, whom you bid to be honored by punishment.

PYRRHUS: O swollen one, while the state of prosperity exalts your spirit, but timid when fear has clamored, tyrant over kings! Do you still bear a breast inflamed with the heat of love and a new passion? Will you alone so often carry off spoils from us? With this right hand I will render to Achilles his victim; and if you deny and withhold her, I will give a greater one, and one worthier for Pyrrhus to give; and too long my royal hand has rested from slaughter, and Priam demands his equal.

AGAMEMNON: Indeed I do not deny that this is Pyrrhus' greatest glory in the war, that Priam lies slain by your savage sword, a suppliant of your father.

PYRRHUS: Suppliants of my father — and enemies, the same — we have known. Yet Priam, present, made his plea; you, faint with heavy fear, not brave enough to plead, entrust your prayers to Ajax and the Ithacan, shut in and trembling at the enemy.

AGAMEMNON: But your father then did not fear, I confess, and amid the slaughter of Greece and the burnt ships lay idle, unmindful of war and arms, striking his tuneful lyre with a light plectrum.

PYRRHUS: Then great Hector, scorning your arms, feared the songs of Achilles, and in so great a fear there was deep peace for the Thessalian ships.

AGAMEMNON: To be sure, in those same Thessalian ships there was deep peace, again, for Hector's father.

PYRRHUS: It is the part of a lofty king to give a king his life.

AGAMEMNON: Why then did your right hand snatch a king's life?

PYRRHUS: One who is merciful will often give death instead of life.

AGAMEMNON: And now, merciful, you seek a maiden for a tomb?

PYRRHUS: Do you now believe it a wrong to sacrifice maidens?

AGAMEMNON: It befits a king to prefer his country to his children.

PYRRHUS: No law spares a captive or hinders punishment.

AGAMEMNON: What the law does not forbid, shame forbids to be done.

PYRRHUS: Whatever has pleased him, the victor is allowed to do.

AGAMEMNON: He to whom much is allowed ought least to wish for liberty.

PYRRHUS: Do you boast these things to those whom Pyrrhus, crushed under a heavy ten years' bondage, freed from the yoke?

AGAMEMNON: Does Scyros give such spirits?

PYRRHUS: Which is free of brothers' crime.

AGAMEMNON: Shut in by the flood —

PYRRHUS: To be sure, of a kindred sea: I know the noble house of Atreus and Thyestes.

AGAMEMNON: O conceived from the furtive ravishing of a maiden, and born of Achilles, but not yet a man —

PYRRHUS: Of that Achilles who, by his lineage, holds the world, scattered through the whole realm of the gods: the sea by Thetis, the shades by Aeacus, heaven by Jove.

AGAMEMNON: Of that Achilles who lies dead by the hand of Paris.

PYRRHUS: Whom no one of the gods, even, sought hand to hand.

AGAMEMNON: Indeed I could check your words and tame your insolence: but my sword knows to spare even captives. Rather let Calchas, the interpreter of the gods, be summoned: if the fates demand it, I will give her up. You who loosed the bonds of the Pelasgian fleet and the delays of war, who by your art unbar the pole, to whom the secrets of the entrails, to whom the crash of the world and the star drawing its long trail of flame give the signs of fate, whose utterances cost me a great price: declare what the god commands, Calchas, and guide us with your counsel.

CALCHAS: The fates give the Greeks their way at the price they are wont: a maiden must be slaughtered at the tomb of the Thessalian leader; but in the garb in which Thessalian women are wont to be wed, or the brides of Ionia or of Mycenae, let Pyrrhus hand over the consort to his father: thus duly shall she be given. Yet not this cause alone holds our ships: a nobler blood than yours, Polyxena, is owed, blood which the fates seek: let Priam's grandson, Hector's, fall from the highest tower and meet his death. Then let the fleet fill the straits with its thousand sails.

CHORUS

Is it true, or does a tale deceive the timid, that shades live when the body is buried, when the wife has laid her hand upon the eyes and the last day has stood against the suns and the sad urn has shut up the ashes? Does it not profit to give up the soul to the funeral, but does it remain for the wretched to live yet longer? Or do we wholly die, and no part of us remains, when, with the fleeing breath, the spirit, mingled with the mists, has passed into the air, and the kindled torch has touched the naked side? Whatever the rising sun, whatever the setting, has known, whatever Ocean with its blue straits, coming and fleeing twice, washes, time will snatch away with the pace of Pegasus. With what whirl the twelve constellations fly, with what course the lord of the stars hastens to roll round the ages, in what manner Hecate hastens to run with her slanting curves: to this we all make our way, the fates; nor is he who has touched the lake sworn by the gods above anywhere any more: as smoke from hot fires vanishes, foul, through a brief space, as the onset of northern Boreas scatters the heavy clouds we saw but now: so this breath, by which we are governed, will flow away. After death there is nothing, and death itself is nothing, the final goal of a swift course; let the greedy lay aside their hope, the anxious their fear: greedy time and chaos devour us. Death is indivisible, harmful to the body and sparing not the soul: Taenarus, and the realm under a harsh lord, and Cerberus, the guard beset before the threshold of the not-easy door, are empty rumors and idle words and a tale like an anxious dream. Do you ask in what place you will lie after death? Where the unborn lie.

ANDROMACHE, OLD MAN, ASTYANAX

ANDROMACHE: Why, sad throng of Phrygia, do you tear your hair and, beating your breasts, water your wretched cheeks with streaming weeping? We have suffered light things, if what we suffer is to be wept. Ilium fell for you but now, for me long ago, when the savage one, with his swift chariot, dragged my limbs, and the Pelian axle groaned with a heavy sound, trembling under Hector's weight. Then overwhelmed and overthrown, whatever befalls, benumbed by ills and rigid, I bear without feeling. Already, snatched from the Greeks, I would follow my husband, did not this child hold me: he tames my spirit and forbids me to die; he compels me to ask the gods for something still — he has added time to my misery. He has taken from me the greatest fruit of my evils, to fear nothing: all place for happy fortune is taken away; only the place by which dire things may come remains. It is most wretched to fear when you hope for nothing.

OLD MAN: What sudden fear has stirred you, stricken?

ANDROMACHE: Some greater evil arises from a great one; not yet has the fate of fallen Ilium stood still.

OLD MAN: And what disasters will the god find, even if he should wish?

ANDROMACHE: The bars of the deep Styx and the dark caverns are loosened, and, lest fear be lacking to the overthrown, enemies hidden in lowest Dis come forth — is the road back passable for the Greeks alone? Surely death is equal for all — this common terror disturbs and shakes the Phrygians; but this, my own, affrights my soul: the dream of a horrible night.

OLD MAN: What visions do you tell? Bring your fears into the open.

ANDROMACHE: The kindly night had nearly passed two of its parts, and the seven stars had turned their bright yoke; unknown rest at last came to me, stricken, and a brief sleep stole over my weary cheeks, if that is sleep, the stupor of a stunned mind: when suddenly Hector stood before my eyes, not such as, of his own accord bearing war against the Argives, he sought the Greek ships with Idaean torches, nor such as, raging with much slaughter against the Greeks, he bore true spoils from a feigned Achilles, not bending his fiery radiance with that face, but weary and downcast and heavy with weeping and like one mournful, covered with squalid hair. Yet it pleased me to have seen him; then, shaking his head: "Drive off sleep," he said, "and snatch away your son, O faithful wife: let him hide, this is the only safety. Cease your weeping — do you groan that Troy has fallen? Would that it lay wholly low. Make haste, remove to anywhere the little offspring of our house." An icy horror and a trembling drove sleep from me, and casting my eyes now here, now there, in fear, forgetting my son, wretched, I sought Hector: the deceitful shade departed through my very embrace.

O son, sure offspring of a great father, sole hope for the Phrygians, only hope of an afflicted house, and child of an old blood too renowned, too like your father: such was the face my Hector had, such was he in his gait and such in his bearing, so he bore his strong hands, so lofty of shoulder, so threatening with grim brow, scattering his hair flung over his tossing neck — O son, too late for the Phrygians, O too soon for your mother, will that time and happy day ever be on which, defender and avenger of the Trojan soil, you may set up a Pergamum reborn and bring back the citizens scattered in flight, and restore to your country its name and to the Phrygians their own? But mindful of my fate I fear so great prayers — for captives it is enough that we live. Alas for me, what place will be faithful to my fear, or in what seat shall I hide you? That citadel, mighty in wealth and in the walls of the gods, famous among all nations and heavy with envy, is now deep dust; all things are laid low by the flame, and there is not left, of the vast city, even so much where an infant may hide. What place shall I choose for the trick? There is a great tomb, sacred to my dear husband, to be revered by the enemy, which his father built with an immense mass and great wealth, no miser in his own grief, the king: best shall I trust the child to his father. A cold sweat falls over all my limbs: wretched, I tremble at the deadly omen of the place.

OLD MAN: Let the wretched seize their refuge, let the secure choose.

ANDROMACHE: But what of this, that he cannot hide without great fear?

OLD MAN: Lest anyone betray you, remove the witnesses of the trick.

ANDROMACHE: If the enemy should ask?

OLD MAN: He perished in the overthrown city. This one cause has kept many from destruction: to be believed to have perished.

ANDROMACHE: There is scarcely any hope left: what will it profit to have hidden if he must return to their hands?

OLD MAN: The victor has his fierce onsets at first.

ANDROMACHE: His great nobility weighs upon him a heavy burden; what place, what region set apart, trackless, will lay you down in safety? Who will bring aid to the trembling? Who will protect you? You who always, even now, protect your own, Hector: keep the secret of a faithful wife and receive him into your loyal ashes to live. Go beneath the tomb, my son — why do you flee back? Do you scorn a base hiding-place? I recognize your nature: you are ashamed to fear. Lay aside your great spirit and your old courage; take such as your lot has given. See, look, what a throng we are who are left: a tomb, a boy, a captive woman. We must yield to our evils. Come, dare to enter the holy seat of your buried father. If the fates aid the wretched, you have safety; if the fates deny you life, you have a tomb.

OLD MAN: The bars hide him, entrusted to them; and, that your fear may not bring him into the open, withdraw far hence and take yourself apart.

ANDROMACHE: He is wont to fear more lightly who fears nearer at hand; but, if it please you, let us carry our steps elsewhere.

OLD MAN: Restrain your mouth a little while, and check your laments: the leader of the Cephallanians brings his abominable steps.

ANDROMACHE: Gape open, earth; and you, husband, in your deepest cavern, split the riven earth and, in the deep bosom of Styx, hide my treasure laid in trust. Ulysses is here, and indeed with doubtful step and look: he weaves crafts in his cunning breast.

ULYSSES, ANDROMACHE

ULYSSES: Minister of a harsh lot, this first I ask: that, though the words are spoken by my mouth, you not believe them to be mine. It is the voice of all the Greeks and their nobles, whom Hector's offspring prevents from seeking their late-found homes: the fates demand him. The anxious trust of an uncertain peace will ever hold the Greeks; ever fear will compel them to look back at their arms behind them, and will not let them be laid aside, while your son gives spirit to the overthrown Phrygians, Andromache. The augur Calchas chants this; and, if the augur Calchas were silent, yet Hector said it, whose very stock I dread. Noble seed rises to its own origins: so the small companion of a great herd, not yet cleaving its hide with its first horns, suddenly lofty of neck and high of brow, leads its father's herd and lords it over the flock; the slender shoot that has stood from a felled trunk in a short time grows up equal to its mother and gives shade to the lands and a grove to the sky; so the ash left ill from a great fire takes up its strength again. Grief is indeed an unjust appraiser of things: yet if you reckon with yourself, you will pardon it, that after ten winters and as many harvests an old soldier now fears war, and fresh disasters, and Troy never well laid low. A great matter moves the Greeks: a Hector to come. Free the Greeks from fear. This one cause holds the launched ships, on this the fleet hangs. And do not think me cruel because, bidden by the lot, I seek Hector's son: I would have sought Orestes. Suffer what the victor bore.

ANDROMACHE: Would indeed that you were, my son, in your mother's hand, and that I knew what chance held you, snatched from me, or what region — not, my breast pierced with hostile weapons, nor my hands tied tight with cutting bonds, nor both my flanks girt with keen flame, would I ever have cast off a mother's faith. My son, what place, what fortune now possesses you? Wandering with trackless straying, do you range the fields? Or has the vast heat of your country seized your limbs? Or has the savage victor made sport with your blood? Have you, slain by the bite of some monstrous beast, fed the Idaean birds?

ULYSSES: Put aside these feigned words; it is not easy for you to deceive Ulysses: I have conquered the wiles of mothers, even of goddesses. Put aside your empty counsels. Where is your son?

ANDROMACHE: Where is Hector? Where all the Phrygians? Where is Priam? You ask for one: I ask for all.

ULYSSES: Compelled, you will tell what of your own accord you refuse to speak.

ANDROMACHE: Safe is she who can die, who ought to, who desires it.

ULYSSES: Death brought near shakes off magnificent words.

ANDROMACHE: If you wish, Ulysses, to compel Andromache by fear, threaten life: for death is my prayer.

ULYSSES: With scourges, fire, death, torture, grief will drive you, unwilling, to utter whatever you hide, and will dig out the secrets buried in your inmost breast: necessity is wont to be able more than piety.

ANDROMACHE: Set before me flames, wounds, and the dire arts of grievous pain, and hunger, and savage thirst, and varied plagues on every side, and steel thrust into these vitals, the squalor of a blind prison, and whatever an angry, fearing victor dares: a brave mother admits no fears.

ULYSSES: This very love, by which you now stand defiant, warns the Greeks to take counsel for their little children. After arms so long, after ten years, I should fear less the fears that Calchas makes, if I feared for myself: you prepare war for Telemachus.

ANDROMACHE: Unwillingly, Ulysses, I will give the Greeks joy: it must be given; confess, grief, what mourning you press down. Rejoice, sons of Atreus, and you, as you are wont, report the glad news to the Pelasgians: Hector's child is dead.

ULYSSES: And by what pledge do you prove this true to the Greeks?

ANDROMACHE: So may the greatest thing a victor can threaten befall me, and may the fates release me with an early, easy death and bury me in my own soil, and may my native land lie lightly upon Hector, as he has lacked the light: he lies among the dead, and, lifeless, given to a tomb, has received his due.

ULYSSES: The fates are fulfilled, with Hector's stock destroyed, and a solid peace, glad, I will bear to the Greeks — what are you doing, Ulysses? The Greeks will believe you: whom do you believe? A mother — does any mother feign this, nor dread the omen of an abominable death? Those fear omens who fear nothing greater. She has bound her faith by an oath — if she swears falsely, what heavier thing can she fear? Now summon your craft, my soul, now your frauds and wiles, now the whole Ulysses; the truth never perishes. Search the mother: she mourns, weeps, groans; but she carries her anxious steps now here, now there, and catches the words sent forth with an anxious ear: she fears more than she mourns. There is need of wit. Other parents in mourning it would befit otherwise: you are to be congratulated, wretched one, that you lack your son, whom a savage death awaited, given headlong from the tower which alone remains of the fallen walls.

ANDROMACHE: My spirit has left my limbs, they shake, they totter, and my blood, bound, is numb with cold ice.

ULYSSES: She trembled: here, here is where I must search; fear has uncovered the mother: I will repeat the fright. — Go, go, swift ones, the enemy hidden by a mother's fraud, the last plague of the Pelasgian name, wherever he lurks, dig him out and bring him into the open. Good: he is held. Go on, hasten, drag him out — why do you look back and tremble? Surely now he perishes.

ANDROMACHE: Would that I feared: long has fear been wonted to me; the mind unlearns slowly what it has long learned.

ULYSSES: Since the boy, the lustral offering owed to the walls, has gone before the rite, and cannot follow the seer, snatched away by a better fate, this Calchas says is the only way the returning ships can be purified, if the wave appease the scattered ash of Hector and his whole tomb be leveled to the lowest soil. Now, since he has escaped the death he owed, the hand must be set to the sacred seat.

ANDROMACHE: What shall I do? A twofold fear distracts my soul: on this side my son, on that the ashes of my husband, sacred. Which part will conquer? I call to witness the merciless gods, and the true gods, the shade of my husband: nothing else, Hector, in my son pleases me but you. Let him live, that he may bring back your face — shall the ash, torn from the tomb, be drowned? Shall I suffer the bones to be scattered, flung apart, on the vast waves? Rather let him meet his death here. — Can you, a mother, see him given over to an abominable slaughter? Can you see him, hurled, whirled over the high battlements? I can, I will endure it, I will bear it, so long as my Hector be not, after death, by the victor's hand flung about. But this one can feel his own punishment, while the fates now place that one in safety — why do you waver? Decide whom you will save from death. Ungrateful, do you hesitate? There is your Hector — you err: on both sides is Hector; this one, with feeling alive, perhaps about to be the avenger of his slain father — both cannot be spared: what now do you do? Save, my soul, of the two, the one the Greeks fear.

ULYSSES: I will carry through the response: I will dig up the tomb from the foundations.

ANDROMACHE: Which you sold?

ULYSSES: I will go on, and from the top of the mound drag the sepulcher.

ANDROMACHE: I call upon the faith of the gods, and the faith of Achilles: Pyrrhus, defend the gift of your father.

ULYSSES: This tomb in a moment will lie low over the whole plain.

ANDROMACHE: This was an utterly abominable thing undared by the Greeks. You have violated temples, gods even favoring; the tomb your fury had passed by. I will resist, unarmed I will offer my hands to the armed, anger will give me strength, such as the fierce Amazon who laid low the Argolic squadrons, or such as a Maenad, struck by the inspiring god, terrifies the woods with her god-filled step, armed with the thyrsus, and, beside herself, deals a wound nor feels it; into their midst I will rush, and, a companion of the ashes, will fall in defense of the tomb.

ULYSSES: Do you hold back, and does the tearful clamor and the empty fury of a woman move you? Quickly perform the commands.

ANDROMACHE: Me, me strike down here with the steel first. I am thrust back, alas. Break the delays of the fates, heave up the earth, Hector: that you may tame Ulysses, even a shade is enough — he has shaken his arms with his hand, he hurls fires — do you see, Greeks, Hector? Or do I alone see him?

ULYSSES: I will dig up all from the foundations.

ANDROMACHE: What are you doing? With one ruin do you lay low at once both son and husband? Perhaps the Greeks by prayer you can appease. The huge weight of the tomb will at once crush him, buried — let the wretched perish anywhere rather, that the father not bury the son and the son press down the father. — I fall at your knees, a suppliant, Ulysses, and the right hand that the feet of no man have known I bring to your feet. Pity a mother, and gentle, patient, receive her pious prayers, and the higher the gods have raised you, lofty, the more gently press the fallen: whatever is given to the wretched is given to fortune. So may the bed of your holy wife see you again, and may Laertes extend his years until he receives you; so may your youth, your own, receive you, and, surpassing your prayers with his happy nature, in age outdo his grandsire, in wit his father. Pity a mother: this is the only solace for me, afflicted.

ULYSSES: Show forth your son, and ask.

ANDROMACHE: Come forth hither from your hiding-place, tearful secret of a wretched mother. This is he, this is the terror, Ulysses, to a thousand ships. Lower your hands and, prostrate, with suppliant right hand adore your master's feet, nor think it base, whatever fortune bids the wretched. Put from your mind your royal forefathers and the sway of the great old man, famed through all the lands; let Hector pass away, bear yourself a captive, and on bended knee, if you do not yet feel your own funeral, imitate your mother's weeping. Troy of old saw too the tears of a royal boy, and little Priam bent the threats of savage Alcides. That one, that fierce one, to whose vast strength all beasts gave way, who, the threshold of Dis broken through, opened back the blind road, was conquered by the tears of a little enemy: "Take up the reins, ruler," he said, "and sit lofty on your father's throne; but hold the scepter with a better faith." This it was to be captured by that conqueror: learn the gentle wraths of Hercules. Or do only the arms of Hercules please you? There lies before your feet, no less than that suppliant a suppliant, and begs for his life — let the kingdom of Troy fortune bear wherever it will.

ULYSSES: The grief of the stricken mother indeed moves me, yet more the Pelasgian mothers move me, to whose great mourning that boy grows.

ANDROMACHE: These, these ruins of a city given to ash, will this child raise up again? These hands will lift Troy? Troy has no hope, if she has such as these. We Trojans do not lie so low that we could be a fear to anyone. Does his father give him spirit? But indeed dragged — even his father, after Troy, would have laid aside the courage that great evils break. If punishment is sought (what heavier can be sought?) let the slavish yoke pass beneath his noble neck, let him be allowed to serve. Does anyone deny this to a king?

ULYSSES: Not Ulysses, but Calchas denies it you.

ANDROMACHE: O contriver of fraud and artificer of crimes, by whose warlike valor no man has fallen, but by the wiles and craft of a malicious mind even the Pelasgians lie dead, do you put forward a seer and innocent gods? This is the deed of your own heart. Soldier of the night, brave in the slaughter of a boy, now alone you dare something, and in broad day.

ULYSSES: The valor of Ulysses is known enough to the Greeks and too well to the Phrygians. There is no leisure to waste the day in idle words: the fleet weighs anchor.

ANDROMACHE: Grant a brief delay, while as a parent I render to my son the last office and with a final embrace sate my greedy sorrows.

ULYSSES: Would that I were allowed to pity you. But what alone is allowed, time and delay I will give: at your own will fill yourself with tears; weeping lightens troubles.

ANDROMACHE: O sweet pledge, O glory of a fallen house and last funeral of Troy, O terror of the Greeks, O vain hope of your mother, for whom, deranged, I prayed your father's warlike praises, your grandsire's years — deranged — the god has overthrown my prayers. You will not handle your country's arms with tender hand, nor, bold, follow the beasts scattered far and wide in the broad glades, nor, on the set day of the festival, bringing back the solemn rite of the Trojan game, will you, a noble boy, drive the swift squadrons; nor, swift of nimble foot among the altars, the bent horn resounding the quickened measures, will you honor the barbarian temples with the ancient dance. You will not, mighty, bear the Ilian scepter in a royal hall, nor give laws to peoples and send conquered nations beneath your yoke; you will not cut down Greek backs, nor drag Pyrrhus. O kind of death sadder than dire war! Something more tearful than the death of great Hector the walls will see.

ULYSSES: Break off now your weeping, mother: great grief sets no end to itself.

ANDROMACHE: Small is the delay we ask for tears, Ulysses; grant it, patient, that with my own hand I may close the eyes of one still living. You die small indeed, but already to be feared. Your Troy awaits you: go, depart free, see the free Trojans.

ASTYANAX: Pity me, mother.

ANDROMACHE: Why do you cling to my bosom and seize your mother's hands, an empty defense? As, when the roaring of a lion is heard, the tender bullock, frightened, presses to its mother's side, but the savage one, the mother removed from the place, holding the lesser prey in its vast jaws, crushes it and comes on: so from my bosom the enemy will snatch you. Receive, boy, kisses and tears and torn hair, and, full of me, go to meet your father; yet carry a few words of a mother's complaint: "If the shades have their former cares, and love does not perish in the flames, do you suffer Andromache to serve a Greek husband, cruel Hector? Do you lie slow and idle? Achilles returns." Take now again my locks, and take my tears, whatever from the wretched funeral of my husband is left, take what you may give back to your father as kisses. Leave this garment for your mother's solace: my tomb has touched it and the dear shade. If any ash hides here, I will search it out with my mouth.

ULYSSES: There is no measure to her weeping: snatch him away quickly, the delay of the Argive fleet.

CHORUS

What dwelling-place calls the captives to be inhabited? The Thessalian mountains and shady Tempe, or Iolcos, tamer of the vast sea? Little Gortyn and barren Tricca, or Mothone, thronged with light streams, or the land fitter to give warlike men, Phthie, and, better in its breed of brave cattle, stony Trachin, which, hidden beneath the Oetean woods, sent more than once its bows hostile to the ruins of Troy? Olenos, dwelt in with scattered roofs, Pleuron, hostile to the virgin goddess, or sinuous Troezen of the broad sea? Pelion, the proud realm of Prothous, a third step to heaven? (Here reclining, roomy in the cave of the hollowed mountain, Chiron, already the teacher of the fierce boy, the strings sounding under his striking plectrum, even then was whetting the vast wraths by singing of wars.) Or Carystos, fertile in varied marble, Crete, spacious with a hundred cities, or Chalcis, pressing the shore of the restless sea, with the Euripus ever hurrying? The Calydnae, easy in any wind, or Gonoessa, never lacking wind, and Enispe, which dreads Boreas? Peparethos hanging on the Attic shore, or Eleusis, rejoicing in its silent rites? . . . Surely not the true Salamis of Ajax, or savage Calydon, known for its fierce beast, and the lands which Titaressos, about to enter the sea, floods with its sluggish waves? Bessa and Scarphe, or aged Pylos? Pharis, or Pisa of Jove, and Elis, famous for its crowns? Wherever the sad tempest sends the wretched and gives us to whatever land, so long as that land, which brought so great a plague on Troy and the Achaeans, Sparta, be far off, far off be Argos and the Mycenae of savage Pelops, little Neritos, shorter than Zacynthos, and Ithaca, harmful with its treacherous rocks. What fate awaits, and what master or to what lands will lead you, Hecuba, to be looked upon? In whose realm will you die?

HELEN, ANDROMACHE, HECUBA

HELEN: Whatever marriage has deadly, joyless laments, slaughter, blood, groans, is worthy of Helen for its sponsor. Even on the ruined Phrygians I am compelled to do harm: I am bidden to tell of Pyrrhus' false marriage-bed, I to give the dress and Greek garb. By my art she will be taken, and by my fraud Paris' sister will fall. Let her be deceived; this, I think, is the lighter for her own self: death is to be wished for, to die without the fear of death. Why do you delay to do as bidden? On its author returns the guilt of a constrained crime. — Noble maiden of the Dardanian house, a kinder god has begun to look upon the afflicted, and prepares to endow you with a happy marriage; such a wedlock not Troy herself, safe, not Priam would give you. For you the greatest glory of the Pelasgian race, to whom the broad realms of the Thessalian plain lie open, seeks for the holy laws of a lawful bed. You great Tethys and so many goddesses of the sea, and Thetis, the placid deity of the swollen main, will call their own; you, given to Pyrrhus, Peleus the father-in-law will call his daughter, and Nereus his. Lay aside your squalid garb, take the festal; unlearn the captive; let down your bristling hair and suffer your locks to be parted by a skilled hand. This chance perhaps will set you back on a loftier throne. To be captured has profited many.

ANDROMACHE: This one evil was lacking to the overthrown Phrygians, to rejoice — Pergamum blazes, laid low far and wide: O time for a wedding! Or would anyone dare to refuse? Would anyone, doubtful, go to a marriage which Helen urges? Pest, ruin, plague of both peoples, do you see these tombs of leaders and the bare bones that lie scattered everywhere unburied over all the fields? Your marriage scattered these. For you the blood of Asia flowed, the blood of Europe flowed, while you, idle, looked out on the fighting men, uncertain of your wish. — Go on, prepare the marriage. What need of torches, or of the solemn flame? What need of fire? Troy lights up the new marriage. Celebrate, Trojan women, the wedding of Pyrrhus, celebrate it fittingly: let beating and groaning sound.

HELEN: Though great grief lacks reason and refuses to be bent, and sometimes hates the very companions of its mourning: yet I can defend my cause before a hostile judge, having suffered heavier things. Andromache mourns Hector, and Hecuba Priam: Paris alone is to be mourned secretly by Helen. Is it dire and hateful and grievous to bear servitude? I have borne this yoke long since, a captive ten years. Is Ilium laid low, the household gods overthrown? It is grievous to lose one's country, more grievous to fear it. You are eased of so great an evil by your fellowship: against me the victor and the vanquished rage. What handmaid each should drag off hung long on doubtful chance; me my master dragged off at once, without a lot. Was I the cause of the wars and of so great a disaster for the Trojans? Think this true, if a Spartan ship cleaved your straits; but if I was a prey, snatched by Phrygian oarsmen, and the victorious goddess gave me as a gift to her judge, pardon one snatched away. My cause will have an angry judge: those decisions await Menelaus. Now, Andromache, your laments laid aside a little, I bend you — scarcely can I hold back my tears.

ANDROMACHE: How great an evil it must be that Helen weeps at! But why does she weep? Tell what wiles the Ithacan, what crimes, weaves; whether from the Idaean ridges the maiden is to be hurled, or sent from the lofty height of the citadel rock? Is she to be rolled over these crags into the vast sea, the crags which Sigeon, looking out on its shoaly gulf, lifts high with riven side? Speak, tell, whatever you hide with your treacherous face. All evils are lighter than that Priam's son-in-law and Hecuba's should be Pyrrhus. Tell, what penalty you prepare, declare, and take from our disasters this one thing — to be deceived: you see us ready to suffer death.

HELEN: Would that the interpreter of the gods bade me too break off the delays of the hated light with the sword, or, before the tomb of Achilles, die by the frenzied hand of Pyrrhus, accompanying your fate, pitiable Polyxena, whom Achilles bids be handed over to him and his own ash be appeased before, that he may be a husband in the Elysian field.

ANDROMACHE: See how her great spirit, glad, has heard of death. She seeks the seemly adornment of a royal robe and suffers the hand to be set to her hair. That she thought death; this she thinks a wedding. But the wretched mother, hearing of the mourning, is stunned; her shaken mind has sunk. Rise up, lift your spirit, and, wretched, steady your failing breath. On how slender a bond her light life hangs — it is the least thing that can make Hecuba happy. She breathes, she has revived: the first death flees the wretched.

HECUBA: Does Achilles still live for the punishment of the Phrygians? Does he still make war? O light hand of Paris! His very ash and tomb thirst for our blood. But now a happy throng girt my sides; I wearied, in so many kisses and so great a flock, to share myself, a mother; now this one alone is left of my prayer, companion, solace, rest of the afflicted; this is the whole brood of Hecuba, by this voice alone am I now called mother. Hard and unhappy, go, slip away, my soul; at last grant me this one funeral spared. Weeping waters my cheeks, and a sudden shower falls from my conquered face.

ANDROMACHE: We, Hecuba, we, we, Hecuba, are to be mourned, whom the launched fleet will bear, scattered here and there; her the dear earth will cover in her native seat.

HELEN: You will envy more, when you know your own lot.

ANDROMACHE: Is some part of my punishment unknown to me?

HELEN: The turned urn has given masters to the captives.

ANDROMACHE: To whom am I handed over as a handmaid? Tell; whom do I call master?

HELEN: You the youth of Scyros took by the first lot.

ANDROMACHE: Cassandra is happy, whom her frenzy and Phoebus exempt from the lot.

HELEN: Her the greatest ruler of kings holds.

HECUBA: Rejoice, be glad, my daughter. How Cassandra would wish your marriage, how Andromache would wish yours! Is there anyone who would wish Hecuba to be called his own?

HELEN: You fell, a brief prize, to the unwilling Ithacan.

HECUBA: What allotter, so ungoverned and harsh and savage of an unjust urn, gave kings to kings? What god, so sinister, divides the captives? What arbiter, cruel and grievous to the wretched, knows not how to choose masters, and mingles the mother of Hector with the arms of Achilles? I am summoned to Ulysses: now conquered, now a captive, now beset by all disasters I seem to myself — I am ashamed of my master, not of my servitude. A barren land, shut in by savage straits, will not hold my tomb — lead, lead me, Ulysses, I do not delay, I follow my master; my fates will follow me: no calm rest will come to the sea; with winds and savage waves, . . . both wars and fires and my evils and Priam's. And until those come, meanwhile this stands in place of punishment: I have seized your lot, I have snatched your prize from you. — But see, Pyrrhus runs up with quickened step and grim face. Pyrrhus, why do you delay? Come, lay open my breast with the steel and unite the parents-in-law of your Achilles. Go on, slaughterer of old men, this blood too befits you: drag her away. Stain the gods above with deadly slaughter, stain the shades — what shall I pray for you? I pray for seas worthy of these rites: let this befall the whole Pelasgian fleet, let this befall the thousand ships, I will pray, whatever ship bears me.

CHORUS

Sweet to the mourner is a company of the grieving, sweet for the nations to resound with laments; more gently do grief and tears bite, which a throng like in weeping shares. Ever, ah ever, grief is malignant: it rejoices that its own fate is sent upon many and that it has not pleased to punish it alone. What lot all suffer to bear, no one refuses. Take away the happy: no one, though he be wretched, will believe himself so; remove those rich with much gold, remove those who cleave their opulent fields with a hundred oxen: the lowly spirits of the poor man will rise — no one is wretched but by comparison. Sweet to one set amid measureless ruins is it that no one has had glad faces: he deplores and bewails his fate, who, cleaving the wave in a lone ship, fell naked into the longed-for harbors; more calmly he has borne the chance and the storms who saw a thousand keels at once overwhelmed on the deep, and the sea, the waves heaped by Corus, drives back the shipwrecked plank, and, the lands gathering, returns. Phrixus complained that Helle had fallen, when the leader of the flock with its radiant golden fleece bore on its back at once brother and sister, and made a casting in mid-sea; yet he held back his laments, the man too and Pyrrha, when they saw the sea, and when they saw nothing but the sea, the only humans left on earth. The fleet, driven here and there, will loose this complaint and scatter our tears, when, the sailors bidden by the trumpet to give their sails, and at once with the wind and hurrying oar they have taken the deep, and the shore flees, what will be the state of the wretched, when all the land shrinks and the sea grows, when lofty Ide hides far away? Then a boy to his mother, and a mother to her son, pointing out in what quarter Troy burns, will say and mark far off with the finger: "Ilium is there, where the smoke creeps high into the sky and the foul mists." By this sign the Trojans will see their country.

MESSENGER, HECUBA, ANDROMACHE

MESSENGER: O harsh fates, savage, pitiable, horrid! What crime so cruel, so sad, has Mars seen in twice five years? What shall I bewail, telling first, yours rather, or your mourning, old woman?

HECUBA: Whatever mourning you weep, you will weep mine: each one's disaster only weighs on him, but on me the disaster of all; for me all things perish: whoever belongs to Hecuba is wretched.

MESSENGER: The maiden is slaughtered, the boy hurled from the walls; but each bore death with a noble mind.

ANDROMACHE: Set out the order of the slaughter, and pursue the twofold crime: great grief delights to handle all its troubles. Tell and recount everything.

MESSENGER: There is one great tower left of Troy, familiar to Priam, from whose summit and topmost battlements, as arbiter of the war he sat, he guided the lines. In this tower, in a fond bosom cherishing his grandson, when Hector put the Greeks, turned in heavy fear, to flight with sword and torch, the old man showed the boy his father's wars. This tower, once known and the glory of the wall, now a savage cliff, is ringed on every side by a poured-in throng of leaders and the common folk; the whole crowd, leaving the ships, comes together. To these a hill afar offers a free view from its open ground, to these a high rock, on whose summit the upright throng balanced on tiptoe. This one a pine bears, that one a laurel, this a beech, and the whole wood trembles with the hanging people. That one seeks the edge of the steep mountain, but that one pressed a half-burnt roof, or a rock overhanging the falling wall, and someone (abominable!) sits, a savage spectator, on Hector's tomb. Through the spaces filled far and wide, with lofty step, the Ithacan advances, dragging by the right hand the little grandson of Priam; nor with sluggish step does the boy go on to the high walls. When he stood on the topmost tower, he turned his keen looks here and there, fearless of soul, as the small and tender offspring of a vast beast, not yet able to rage with its tooth — yet already lifts its threats and tries vain bitings and swells with spirit: so that boy, gripped by a hostile hand, fierce and proud, had moved the throng and the leaders and Ulysses himself. There is not one of the whole crowd who is wept for; and, while Ulysses conceives the words and prayers of the prophesying seer and summons the savage gods to the rites, of his own accord he leaped down into the midst of Priam's realm. . . .

ANDROMACHE: What Colchian, what Scythian of an uncertain home committed this, or what lawless nation touching the Caspian sea has dared it? Not the boyish blood sprinkled the altars of savage Busiris, nor did Diomedes set out little limbs to be feasted on by his herds. Who will gather your limbs and give them to a tomb?

MESSENGER: For what limbs has the headlong place left? The bones, scattered and crushed by the heavy fall; the marks of his bright body, both his face and those noble tokens of his father, the weight, given to the deep earth, has confounded; his neck broken by the stroke of the rock, his head torn open, the brains pressed wholly out — he lies, a shapeless body.

ANDROMACHE: Thus too he is like his father.

MESSENGER: When the boy fell headlong from the high walls, and the throng of Achaeans wept at the crime they had done, that same people returns to another deed and to the tomb of Achilles. Whose farthest shore the Rhoetean shallows beat with a gentle wave; the opposite plain rings it, and a valley, raised on a slight slope, enclosing the middle place, swells in the manner of a theater. A thronged gathering filled all the shore: some think the fleet's delay is loosed by this death, some rejoice that the enemy's stock is cut down. A great part of the fickle crowd hates the crime and watches it; nor less the Trojans attend their own funeral, and, trembling with fear, see the last part of Troy: when suddenly, in the manner of a wedding, torches go before and the daughter of Tyndareus as matron-of-honor, her sad head bowed down. "May Hermione marry in such fashion," the Phrygians pray, "may Helen thus, disgraced, be given back to her husband." Terror holds both peoples, stunned. She herself bears her looks cast down in shame, but yet her cheeks gleam, and more than its wont shines the last beauty, as the light of Phoebus is wont to be sweeter when now setting, when the stars resume their turns and the doubtful day is pressed by the neighboring night. The whole crowd is amazed — and nearly all the more praise her who is about to perish. Some are moved by the glory of her beauty, some by her tender age, some by the shifting turns of things; the brave spirit, going to meet death, moves all. She goes before Pyrrhus; all minds tremble, they wonder and pity, when first she reached the lofty height of the steep mountain and, high-raised, stood on the summit of her father's tomb, the youth's, the bold warrior-maid did not carry her step backward; turned to the blow, she stands, fierce with grim face. So brave a spirit strikes the minds of all, and it is a new portent that Pyrrhus is slow to slay. When his right hand had buried the steel, driven deep, sudden blood burst forth, the death received, through the vast wound; nor yet, dying, does she lay aside her spirit: she fell, to make the earth heavy for Achilles, face down and with an angry rush. Each gathering wept; but the Phrygians sent forth a timid groan, and the victor groans more loudly. This was the order of the rite: the shed blood did not stand still nor flow on the surface of the ground: at once the savage tomb drew it in and drank all the blood.

HECUBA: Go, go, Greeks, seek now your homes in safety; let the untroubled fleet cleave the longed-for seas with sails spread wide: the maiden and the boy have fallen; the war is done. Whither shall I bear my tears? Where shall I spit out this aged delay of death? Shall I weep for my daughter or grandson, my husband or my country? Or for all, or for myself alone? Death, my prayer, you come violent to infants and to maidens, everywhere you hasten, savage: me alone you fear and shun, though, amid swords and weapons and torches, sought all night long, you flee me as I long for you. Not an enemy nor a ruin, not fire, consumed my limbs: how near to Priam I stood!

MESSENGER: Seek again the seas with swift step, captives: now the ship loosens its sails, and the fleet moves.