Thy bitter cry? Behind our doorWe heard thy heavy heart outpour
Its sorrow: and there shivered by
Fear and a quick sob shaken
From prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!
Hecuba. Child, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore …
Second Woman. The ships, the ships awaken!
Third Woman. Dear God, what would they? Overseas
Bear me afar to strange cities?
Hecuba. Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,
Fears of the hope-forsaken.
First Woman.
Awake, O daughters of affliction, wake
And learn your lots! Even now the Argives break
Their camp for sailing!
Hecuba.
Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not her
Whom God hath maddened, lest the foe
Mock at her dreaming. Leave me clear
From that one edge of woe.
O Troy, my Troy, thou diest here
Most lonely; and most lonely we
The living wander forth from thee,
And the dead leave thee wailing!
[One of the huts on the left is now open, and the rest of the Chorus come out severally. Their number eventually amounts to fifteen.
Fourth Woman.
[Antistrophe 1.
Out of the tent of the Greek king
I steal, my Queen, with trembling breath:
What means thy call? Not death; not death!
They would not slay so low a thing!
Fifth Woman. O, 'tis the ship-folk crying
To deck the galleys: and we part, we part!
Hecuba. Nay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart.
Fifth Woman. My heart with dread is dying!
Sixth Woman. An herald from the Greek hath come!
Fifth Woman. How have they cast me, and to whom
A bondmaid?
Hecuba. Peace, child: wait thy doom.
Our lots are near the trying.
Fourth Woman.
Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,
Or some lone island of the tossing sea,
Far, far from Troy?
Hecuba.
And I the agèd, where go I,
A winter-frozen bee, a slave
Death-shapen, as the stones that lie
Hewn on a dead man's grave:
The children of mine enemy
To foster, or keep watch before
The threshold of a master's door,
I that was Queen in Troy!
A Woman to Another.
[Strophe 2.
And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?
The Other. The shuttle still shall flit and change
Beneath my fingers, but the loom,
Sister, be strange.
Another (wildly). Look, my dead child! My child, my love, The last look. … Another. Oh, there cometh worse. A Greek's bed in the dark. … Another. God curse That night and all the powers thereof!Another. Or pitchers to and fro to bear To some Pirênê on the hill, Where the proud water craveth still Its broken-hearted minister. Another. God guide me yet to Theseus' land, The gentle land, the famed afar … Another. But not the hungry foam—Ah, never!— Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river, To bow to Menelaus' hand, That wasted Troy with war!
A Woman.
[Antistrophe 2.
They told us of a land high-born,
Where glimmers round Olympus' roots
A lordly river, red with corn
And burdened fruits.
Another. Aye, that were next in my desire
To Athens, where good spirits dwell …
Another. Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire
That front the Tyrian's Citadel:
First mother, she, of Sicily
And mighty mountains: fame hath told
Their crowns of goodness manifold. …
Another. And, close beyond the narrowing sea,
A sister land, where float enchanted
Ionian summits, wave on wave, And Crathis of the burning tresses
Makes red the happy vale, and blesses
With gold of fountains spirit-haunted
Homes of true men and brave!
Leader.
But lo, who cometh: and his lips
Grave with the weight of dooms unknown:
A Herald from the Grecian ships.
Swift comes he, hot-foot to be done
And finished. Ah, what bringeth he
Of news or judgment? Slaves are we,
Spoils that the Greek hath won!
[Talthybius, followed by some Soldiers, enters from the left.
Talthybius.
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