{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/eurip/trojan.htm","path":"cla/eurip/trojan.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/eurip/trojan.htm","text":"THE TROJAN WOMEN\nOF EURIPIDES\nTRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE\nWITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY\nGILBERT MURRAY, L.L.D., D.LITT.\nREGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\nNEW YORK\nOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS\nAMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND STREET\nLONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY\nHUMPHREY MILFORD\n1915\n-\nTHE TROJAN WOMEN\nIN his clear preface, Gilbert Murray says with truth that The Trojan Women, valued by the\nusage of the stage, is not a perfect play. \"It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs\nof the world wrought into music.\" Yet it is one of the greater dramas of the elder world.\nIn one situation, with little movement, with few figures, it flashes out a great dramatic\nlesson, the infinite pathos of a successful wrong. It has in it the very soul of the tragic.\nIt even goes beyond the limited tragic, and hints that beyond the defeat may come a\ngreater glory than will be the fortune of the victors. And thus through its pity and terror\nit purifies our souls to thoughts of peace.\nGreat art has no limits of locality or time. Its tidings are timeless, and its messages are\nuniversal. The Trojan Women was first performed in 415 BC, from a story of the siege of Troy\nwhich even then was ancient history. But the pathos of it is as modern to us as it was to the\nAthenians. The terrors of war have not changed in three thousand years. Euripides had that\nto say of war which we have to say of it to-day, and had learned that which we are even now\nlearning, that when most triumphant it brings as much wretchedness to the victors as to the\nvanquished. In this play the great conquest \"seems to be a great joy and is in truth a great\nmisery.\" The tragedy of war has in no essential altered. The god Poseidon mourns over Troy\nas he might over the cities of to-day, when he cries:\n\"How are ye blind,\nYe treaders down of cities, ye that cast\nTemples to desolation, and lay waste\nTombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie\nThe ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!\"\nTo the cities of this present day might the prophetess Cassandra speak her message:\n\"Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!\nYet if war come, there is a crown in death\nFor her that striveth well and perisheth\nUnstained: to die in evil were the stain!\"\nA throb of human sympathy as if with one of our sisters of to-day comes to us at the end,\nwhen the city is destroyed and its queen would throw herself, living, into its flames.\nTo be of the action of this play the imagination needs not to travel back over three\nthousand years of history. It can simply leap a thousand leagues of ocean.\nIf ever wars are to be ended, the imagination of man must end them. To the common mind, in\nspite of all its horrors, there is still something glorious in war. Preachers have preached\nagainst it in vain; economists have argued against its wastefulness in vain. The imagination\nof a great poet alone can finally show to the imagination of the world that even the glories\nof war are an empty delusion. Euripides shows us, as the centre of his drama, women battered\nand broken by inconceivable torture - the widowed Hecuba, Andromache with her child dashed\nto death, Cassandra ravished and made mad - yet does he show that theirs are the unconquered\nand unconquerable spirits. The victorious men, flushed with pride, have remorse and\nmockery dealt out to them by those they fought for, and go forth to unpitied death. Never\nsurely can a great tragedy seem more real to us, or purge our souls more truly of the unreality\nof our thoughts and feelings concerning vital issues, than can The Trojan Women at this moment\nof the history of the world.\nFrancis Hovey Stoddard.\nMay the first, 1915.\n-\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\nJUDGED by common standards, the Troades is far from a perfect play; it is scarcely even a good\nplay. It is an intense study of one great situation, with little plot, little construction,\nlittle or no relief or variety. The only movement of the drama is a gradual extinguishing of\nall the familiar lights of human life, with, perhaps, at the end, a suggestion that in the\nutterness of night, when all fears of the possible worse thing are passed, there is in some\nsense peace and even glory. But the situation itself has at least this dramatic value, that\nit is different from what it seems.\nThe consummation of a great conquest, a thing celebrated in paeans and thanksgivings, the\nvery height of the day-dreams of the unregenerate man - it seems to be a great joy, and\nit is in truth a great misery. It is conquest seen when the thrill of battle is over, and\nnothing remains but to wait and think. We feel in the background the presence of the\nconquerors, sinister and disappointed phantoms; of the conquered men, after long torment,\nnow resting in death. But the living drama for Euripides lay in the conquered women. It is\nfrom them that he has named his play and built up his scheme of parts: four figures clearly\nlit and heroic, the others in varying grades of characterisation, nameless and barely\narticulate, mere half-heard voices of an eternal sorrow.\nIndeed, the most usual condemnation of the play is not that it is dull, but that it is too\nharrowing; that scene after scene passes beyond the due limits of tragic art. There are\npoints to be pleaded against this criticism. The very beauty of the most fearful scenes,\nin spite of their fearfulness, is one; the quick comfort of the lyrics is another, falling\nlike a spell of peace when the strain is too hard to bear (cf. p. 89). But the main defence\nis that, like many of the greatest works of art, the Troades is something more than art.\nIt is also prophesy, a bearing of witness. And the prophet, bound to deliver his message,\nwalks outside the regular ways of the artist.\nFor some time before the Troades was produced, Athens, now entirely in the hands of the\nWar Party, had been engaged in an enterprise which, though on military grounds defensible,\nwas bitterly resented by the more humane minority, and has been selected by Thucydides as\nthe great crucial crime of the war. She had succeeded in compelling the neutral Dorian\nisland of Melos to take up arms against her, and after a long siege had conquered the\nquiet and immemorially ancient town, massacred the men and sold the women and children\ninto slavery. Melos fell in the autumn of 416 BC. The Troades was produced in the\nfollowing spring. And while the gods of the prologue were prophesying destruction at\nsea for the sackers of Troy, the fleet of the sackers of Melos, flushed with conquest\nand marked by a slight but unforgettable taint of sacrilege, was actually preparing to\nset sail for its fatal enterprise against Sicily.\nNot, of course, that we have in the Troades a case of political allusion. Far from it.\nEuripides does not mean Melos when he says Troy, nor mean Alcibiades' fleet when he speaks\nof Agamemnon's. But he writes under the influence of a year which to him, as to Thucydides,\nhad been filled full of indignant pity and of dire foreboding. This tragedy is perhaps, in\nEuropean literature, the first great expression of the spirit of pity for mankind exalted\ninto a moving principle; a principle which has made the most precious, and possibly the most\ndestructive, elements of innumerable rebellions, revolutions, and martyrdoms, and of at\nleast two great religions.\nPity is a rebel passion. Its hand is against the strong, against the organised force of\nsociety, against conventional sanctions and accepted Gods. It is the Kingdom of Heaven\nwithin us fighting against the brute powers of the world; and it is apt to have those\nqualities of unreason, of contempt for the counting of costs and the balance of sacrifices,\nof recklessness, and even, in the last resort, of ruthlessness, which so often mark the\npaths of heavenly things and the doings of the children of light. It brings not peace,\nbut a sword.\nSo it was with Euripides. The Troades itself has indeed almost no fierceness and singularly\nlittle thought of revenge. It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world\nwrought into music, as it were, and made beautiful by \"the most tragic of the poets.\" But\nits author lived ever after in a deepening atmosphere of strife and even hatred, down to\nthe day when, \"because almost all in Athens rejoiced at his suffering,\" he took his way to\nthe remote valleys of Macedon to write the Bacchae and to die.\nG.M.\n-\nTHE TROJAN WOMEN\nCHARACTERS IN THE PLAY\nTHE GOD POSEIDON.\nTHE GODDESS PALLAS ATHENA.\nHECUBA, Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector and Paris.\nCASSANDRA, daughter of Hecuba, a prophetess.\nANDROMACHE, wife of Hector, Prince of Troy.\nHELEN, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta; carried off by Paris, Prince of Troy.\nTALTHYBIUS, Herald of the Greeks.\nMENELAUS, King of Sparta, and, together with his brother Agamemnon, General of the Greeks.\nSOLDIERS ATTENDANT ON TALTHYBIUS AND MENELAUS.\nCHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN, YOUNG AND OLD, MAIDEN AND MARRIED.\nThe Troades was first acted in the year 415 BC. \"The first prize was won by Xenocles,\nwhoever he may have been, with the four plays Oedipus, Lycaon, Bacchae and Athamas, a\nSatyr-play. The second by Euripides with the Alexander, Palamedes, Troades and Sisyphus,\na satyr-play.\"\n-AELIAN, Varia Historia, ii. 8.\n-\nTHE TROJAN WOMEN\nThe scene represents a battlefield, a few days after the battle. At the back are the walls\nof Troy, partially ruined. In front of them, to right and left, are some huts, containing\nthose of the Captive Women who have been specially set apart for the chief Greek leaders.\nAt one side some dead bodies of armed men are visible. In front a tall woman with white\nhair is lying on the ground asleep.\nIt is the dusk of early dawn, before sunrise. The figure of the god POSEIDON is dimly\nseen before the walls.\nPOSEIDON.\nUp from the Aegean caverns, pool by poo\nOf blue salt sea, where feet most beautiful\nOf Nereid maidens weave beneath the foam\nTheir long sea-dances, I, their lord, am come,\nPoseidon of the Sea. 'Twas I whose power,\nWith great Apollo, builded tower by tower\nThese walls of Troy; and still my care doth stand\nTrue to the ancient People of my hand;\nWhich now as smoke is perished, in the shock\nOf Argive spears. Down from Parnassus' rock\nThe Greek Epeios came, of Phocian seed,\nAnd wrought by Pallas' mysteries a Steed\nMarvellous, big with arms; and through my wall\nIt passed, a death-fraught image magical.\nThe groves are empty and the sanctuaries\nRun red with blood. Unburied Priam lies\nBy his own hearth, on God's high altar-stair,\nAnd Phrygian gold goes forth and raiment rare\nTo the Argive ships; and weary soldiers roam\nWaiting the wind that blows at last for home,\nFor wives and children, left long years away,\nBeyond the seed's tenth fullness and decay,\nTo work this land's undoing.\nAnd for me,\nSince Argive Hera conquereth, and she\nWho wrought with Hera to the Phrygians' woe,\nPallas, behold, I bow mine head and go\nForth from great Ilion and mine altars old.\nWhen a still city lieth in the hold\nOf Desolation, all God's spirit there\nIs sick and turns from worship.-Hearken where\nThe ancient River waileth with a voice\nOf many women, portioned by the choice\nOf war amid new lords, as the lots leap\nFor Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep\nOf Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are,\nHigh women, chosen from the waste of war\nFor the great kings, behind these portals hid;\nAnd with them that Laconian Tyndarid,\nHelen, like them a prisoner and a prize.\nAnd this unhappy one-would any eyes\nGaze now on Hecuba? Here at the Gates\nShe lies 'mid many tears for many fates\nOf wrong. One child beside Achilles' grave\nIn secret slain, Polyxena the brave,\nLies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone;\nAnd, lo, Cassandra, she the Chosen One,\nWhom Lord Apollo spared to walk her way\nA swift and virgin spirit, on this day\nLust hath her, and she goeth garlanded\nA bride of wrath to Agamemnon's bed.\n[He turns to go; and another divine Presence\nbecomes visible in the dusk. It is goddess\nPALLAS ATHENA.\nO happy long ago, farewell, farewell,\nYe shining towers and mine old citadel;\nBroken by Pallas, Child of God, or still\nThy roots had held thee true.\nPALLAS.\nIs it the will\nOf God's high Brother, to whose hand is given\nGreat power of old, and worship of all Heaven,\nTo suffer speech from one whose enmities\nThis day are cast aside?\nPOSEIDON.\nHis will it is:\nKindred and long companionship withal,\nMost high Athena, are things magical.\nPALLAS.\nBlest be thy gentle mood!-Methinks I see\nA road of comfort here, for thee and me.\nPOSEIDON.\nThou hast some counsel of the Gods, or word\nSpoken of Zeus? Or is it tidings heard\nFrom some far Spirit?\nPALLAS.\nFor this Ilion's sake,\nWhereon we tread, I seek thee, and would make\nMy hand as thine.\nPOSEIDON.\nHath that old hate and deep\nFailed, where she lieth in her ashen sleep?\nThou pitiest her?\nPALLAS.\nSpeak first; wilt thou be one\nIn heart with me and hand till all be done?\nPOSEIDON.\nYea; but lay bare thy heart. For this land's sake\nThou comest, not for Hellas?\nPALLAS.\nI would make\nMine ancient enemies laugh for joy, and bring\nOn these Greek ships a bitter homecoming.\nPOSEIDON.\nSwift is thy spirit's path, and strange withal,\nAnd hot thy love and hate, where'er they fall.\nPALLAS.\nA deadly wrong they did me, yea within\nMine holy place: thou knowest?\nPOSEIDON.\nI know the sin\nOf Ajax, when he cast Cassandra down . . .\nPALLAS.\nAnd no man rose and smote him; not a frown\nNor word from all the Greeks!\nPOSEIDON.\nAnd 'twas thine hand\nThat gave them Troy!\nPALLAS.\nTherefore with thee I stand\nTo smite them.\nPOSEIDON.\nAll thou cravest, even now\nIs ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?\nPALLAS.\nAn homecoming that striveth ever more\nAnd cometh to no home.\nPOSEIDON.\nHere on the shore\nWouldst hold them or amid mine own salt foam ?\nPALLAS.\nWhen the last ship hath bared her sail for home!\nZeus shall send rain, long rain and flaw of driven\nHail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven;\nTo me his levin-light he promiseth\nO'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death\nDo thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steep\nWith war of waves and yawning of the deep,\nTill dead men choke Euboea's curling bay.\nSo Greece shall dread even in an after day\nMy house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!\nPOSEIDON.\nI give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands\nShall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that cross\nThe Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos,\nScyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-driven\nCaphereus with the bones of drowned men\nShall glut him.-Go thy ways, and bid the Sire\nYield to shine hand the arrows of his fire\nThen wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind\nHer cable coil for home! [Exit PALLAS.\nHow are ye blind\nYe treaders down of cities, ye that cast\nTemples to desolation, and lay waste\nTombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie\nThe ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!\n[Exit POSEIDON.\n_________________\nThe day slowly dawns: HECUBA wakes.\nHECUBA.\nUp from the earth, O weary head!\nThis is not Troy, about, above\u00d1\nNot Troy, nor we the lords thereof.\nThou breaking neck, be strengthened!\nEndure and chafe not. The winds rave\nAnd falter. Down the world's wide road,\nFloat, float where streams the breath of God;\nNor turn thy prow to breast the wave.\nAh woe! . . . For what woe lacketh here?\nMy children lost, my land, my lord.\nO thou great wealth of glory, stored\nOf old in Ilion, year by year\nWe watched . . . and wert thou nothingness?\nWhat is there that I fear to say?\nAnd yet, what help? . . . Ah, well-a-day,\nThis ache of lying, comfortless\nAnd haunted! Ah, my side, my brow\nAnd temples! All with changeful pain\nMy body rocketh, and would fain\nMove to the tune of tears that flow:\nFor tears are music too, and keep\nA song unheard in hearts that weep.\n[She rises and gazes towards the Greek ships\nfar off on the shore.\nO ships, O crowding faces\nOf ships, O hurrying beat\nOf oars as of crawling feet,\nHow found ye our holy places?\nThreading the narrows through,\nOut from the gulfs of the Greek,\nOut to the clear dark blue,\nWith hate ye came and with joy,\nAnd the noise of your music flew,\nClarion and pipe did shriek,\nAs the coiled cords ye threw,\nHeld in the heart of Troy!\nWhat sought ye then that ye came?\nA woman, a thing abhorred:\nA King's wife that her lord\nHateth: and Castor's shame\nIs hot for her sake, and the reeds\nOf old Eurotas stir\nWith the noise of the name of her.\nShe slew mine ancient King,\nThe Sower of fifty Seeds,\nAnd cast forth mine and me,\nAs shipwrecked men, that cling\nTo a reef in an empty sea.\nWho am I that I sit\nHere at a Greek king's door,\nYea, in the dust of it?\nA slave that men drive before,\nA woman that hath no home,\nWeeping alone for her dead;\nA low and bruised head,\nAnd the glory struck therefrom.\n[She starts up from her solitary brooding,\nand calls to the other Trojan Women in the\nhuts.\nO Mothers of the Brazen Spear,\nAnd maidens, maidens, brides of shame.\nTroy is a smoke, a dying flame;\nTogether we will weep for her:\nI call ye as a wide-wing'd bird\nCalleth the children of her fold,\nTo cry, ah, not the cry men heard\nIn Ilion, not the songs of old,\nThat echoed when my hand was true\nOn Priam's sceptre, and my feet\nTouched on the stone one signal beat,\nAnd out the Dardan music rolled;\nAnd Troy's great Gods gave ear thereto.\n[The door of one of the huts on the right\nopens, and the Women steal out severally,\nstartled and afraid.\nFIRST WOMAN.\n[Strothe I\nHow say'st thou ? Whither moves thy cry,\nThy bitter cry? Behind our door\nWe heard thy heavy heart outpour\nIts sorrow: and there shivered by\nFear and a quick sob shaken\nFrom prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!\nHECUBA.\nChild, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore . .\nSECOND WOMAN.\nThe ships, the ships awaken!\nTHIRD WOMAN.\nDear God, what would they? Overseas\nBear me afar to strange cities?\nHECUBA\nNay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,\nFears of the hope-forsaken.\nFIRST WOMAN.\nAwake, O daughters of affliction, wake\nAnd learn your lots! Even now the Argives break\nTheir camp for sailing!\nHECUBA.\nAh, not Cassandra! Wake not her\nWhom God hath maddened, lest the foe\nMock at her dreaming. Leave me clear\nFrom that one edge of woe.\nO Troy, my Troy, thou diest here\nMost lonely; and most lonely we\nThe living wander forth from thee,\nAnd the dead leave thee wailing!\n[One of the huts on the left is now open,\nand the rest of the CHORUS come out severally.\nTheir number eventually amounts to fifteen.\nFOURTH WOMAN.\n[Antistrophe I.\nOut of the tent of the Greek king\nI steal, my Queen, with trembling breath:\nWhat means thy call ? Not death; not death!\nThey would not slay so low a thing!\nFIFTH WOMAN.\nO, 'tis the ship-folk crying\nTo deck the galleys: and we part, we part!\nHECUBA.\nNay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart.\nFIFTH WOMAN.\nMy heart with dread is dying!\nSIXTH WOMAN.\nAn herald from the Greek hath come!\nFIFTH WOMAN.\nHow have they cast me, and to whom\nA bondmaid?\nHECUBA.\nPeace, child: wait thy doom.\nOur lots are near the trying.\nFOURTH WOMAN.\nArgos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,\nOr some lone island of the tossing sea,\nFar, far from Troy?\nHECUBA.\nAnd I the aged, where go I,\nA winter-frozen bee, a slave\nDeath-shapen, as the stones that lie\nHewn on a dead man's grave:\nThe children of mine enemy\nTo foster, or keep watch before\nThe threshold of a master's door,\nI that was Queen in Troy!\nA WOMAN TO ANOTHER.\n[Strophe 2.\nAnd thou, what tears can tell thy doom?\nTHE OTHER.\nThe shuttle still shall flit and change\nBeneath my fingers, but the loom,\nSister, be strange.\nANOTHER (wildly).\nLook, my dead child! My child, my love,\nThe last look....\nANOTHER.\nOh, there cometh worse.\nA Greek's bed in the dark....\nANOTHER.\nGod curse\nThat night and all the powers thereof!\nANOTHER.\nOr pitchers to and fro to bear\nTo some Pirene on the hill,\nWhere the proud water craveth still\nIts broken-hearted minister.\nANOTHER.\nGod guide me yet to Theseus' land,\nThe gentle land, the famed afar . . .\nANOTHER.\nBut not the hungry foam -Ah, never!-\nOf fierce Eurotas, Helen's river,\nTo bow to Menelaus' hand,\nThat wasted Troy with war!\nA WOMAN.\n[Antistrophe 2.\nThey told us of a land high-born,\nWhere glimmers round Olympus' roots\nA lordly river, red with corn\nAnd burdened fruits.\nANOTHER.\nAye, that were next in my desire\nTo Athens, where good spirits dwell . . .\nANOTHER.\nOr Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire\nThat front the Tyrian's Citadel:\nFirst mother, she, of Sicily\nAnd mighty mountains: fame hath to\nTheir crowns of goodness manifold. . .\nANOTHER.\nAnd, close beyond the narrowing sea,\nA sister land, where float enchanted\nIonian summits, wave on wave,\nAnd Crathis of the burning tresses\nMakes red the happy vale, and blesses\nWith gold of fountains spirit-haunted\nHomes of true men and brave!\nLEADER.\nBut lo, who cometh: and his lips\nGrave with the weight of dooms unknown:\nA Herald from the Grecian ships.\nSwift comes he, hot-foot to be done\nAnd finished. Ah, what bringeth he\nOf news or judgment? Slaves are we,\nSpoils that the Greek hath won!\n[TALTHYBlUS, followed by some Soldiers, enters\nfrom the left.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nThou know'st me, Hecuba. Often have I crossed\nThy plain with tidings from the Hellene host.\n'Tis I, Talthybius. . . . Nay, of ancient use\nThou know'st me. And I come to bear thee news.\nHECUBA.\nAh me, 'tis here, 'tis here,\nWomen of Troy, our long embosomed fear!\nTALTHYBIUS.\nThe lots are cast, if that it was ye feared.\nHECUBA.\nWhat lord, what land.... Ah me,\nPhthia or Thebes, or sea-worn Thessaly?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nEach hath her own. Ye go not in one herd.\nHECUBA.\nSay then what lot hath any? What of joy\nFalls, or can fall on any child of Troy?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nI know: but make thy questions severally.\nHECUBA.\nMy stricken one must be\nStill first. Say how Cassandra's portion lies.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nChosen from all for Agamemnon's prize!\nHECUBA.\nHow, for his Spartan bride\nA tirewoman? For Helen's sister's pride?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nNay, nay: a bride herself, for the King's bed.\nHECUBA.\nThe sainted of Apollo? And her own\nPrize that God promised\nOut of the golden clouds, her virgin crown ?\nTALTHYBIUS\nHe loved her for that same strange holiness.\nHECUBA.\nDaughter, away, away,\nCast all away,\nThe haunted Keys, the lonely stole's array\nThat kept thy body like a sacred place!\nTALTHYBIUS.\nIs't not rare fortune that the King hath smiled\nOn such a maid ?\nHECUBA.\nWhat of that other child\nYe reft from me but now?\nTALTHYBIUS (speaking with some constraint).\nPolyxena? Or what child meanest thou?\nHECUBA.\nThe same. What man now hath her, or what doom?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nShe rests apart, to watch Achilles' tomb.\nHECUBA.\nTo watch a tomb? My daughter? What is this? ...\nSpeak, Friend? What fashion of the laws of Greece?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nCount thy maid happy! She hath naught of ill\nTo fear . . .\nHECUBA.\nWhat meanest thou ? She liveth still ?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nI mean, she hath one toil that holds her free\nFrom all toil else.\nHECUBA.\nWhat of Andromache,\nWife of mine iron-hearted Hector, where\nJourneyeth she?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nPyrrhus, Achilles' son, hath taken her.\nHECUBA.\nAnd I, whose slave am I,\nThe shaken head, the arm that creepeth by,\nStaff-crutched, like to fall?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nOdysseus, Ithaca's king, hath thee for thrall.\nHECUBA.\nBeat, beat the crownless head:\nRend the cheek till the tears run red!\nA lying man and a pitiless\nShalt be lord of me, a heart full-flown\nWith scorn of righteousness:\nO heart of a beast where law is none,\nWhere all things change so that lust be fed,\nThe oath and the deed, the right and the wrong,\nEven the hate of the forked tongue:\nEven the hate turns and is cold,\nFalse as the love that was false of old!\nO Women of Troy, weep for me!\nYea, I am gone: I am gone my ways.\nMine is the crown of misery,\nThe bitterest day of all our days.\nLEADER.\nThy fate thou knowest, Queen: but I know not\nWhat lord of South or North has won my lot.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nGo, seek Cassandra, men! Make your best speed,\nThat I may leave her with the King, and lead\nThese others to their divers lords. . . . Ha, there!\nWhat means that sudden light? Is it the flare\nOf torches?\n[Light is seen shining through the crevices of the\nsecond hut on the right. He moves towards it.\nWould they fire their prison rooms,\nOr how, these dames of Troy?-'Fore God, the dooms\nAre known, and now they burn themselves and die\nRather than sail with us! How savagely\nIn days like these a free neck chafes beneath\nIts burden! . . . Open! Open quick! Such death\nWere bliss to them, it may be: but 'twill bring\nMuch wrath, and leave me shamed before the King!\nHECUBA.\nThere is no fire, no peril: 'tis my child,\nCassandra, by the breath of God made wild.\n[The door opens from within and CASSANDRA\nenters, white-robed and wreathed like a\nPriestess, a great torch in her hand. She\nis singing softly to herself and does not see\nthe Herald or the scene before her.\nCASSANDRA.\nLift, lift it high: [Strophe.\nGive it to mine hand!\nLo, I bear a flame\nUnto God! I praise his name.\nI light with a burning brand\nThis sanctuary.\nBlessed is he that shall wed,\nAnd blessed, blessed am I\nIn Argos: a bride to lie\nWith a king in a king's bed.\nHail, O Hymen red,\nO Torch that makest one!\nWeepest thou, Mother mine own?\nSurely thy cheek is pale\nWith tears, tears that wail\nFor a land and a father dead.\nBut I go garlanded:\nI am the Bride of Desire:\nTherefore my torch is borne--\nLo, the lifting of morn,\nLo, the leaping of fire!--\nFor thee, O Hymen bright,\nFor thee, O Moon of the Deep,\nSo Law hath charged, for the light\nOf a maid's last sleep.\nAwake, O my feet, awake: [Antistrophe.\nOur father's hope is won!\nDance as the dancing skies\nOver him, where he lies\nHappy beneath the sun! . . .\nLo, the Ring that I make . . .\n[She makes a circle round her with a torch,\nand visions appear to her.\nApollo! . . . Ah, is it thou?\nO shrine in the laurels cold,\nI bear thee still, as of old,\nMine incense! Be near to me now.\n[She waves the torch as though bearing incence,\nO Hymen, Hymen fleet:\nQuick torch that makest one!\nHow? Am I still alone?\nLaugh as I laugh, and twine\nIn the dance, O Mother mine:\nDear feet, be near my feet!\nCome, greet ye Hymen, greet\nHymen with songs of pride:\nSing to him loud and long,\nCry, cry, when the song\nFaileth, for joy of the bride!\nO Damsels girt in the gold\nOf Ilion, cry, cry ye,\nFor him that is doomed of old\nTo be lord of me!\nLEADER.\nO hold the damsel, lest her tranced feet\nLift her afar, Queen, toward the Hellene fleet!\nHECUBA.\nO Fire, Fire, where men make marriages\nSurely thou hast thy lot; but what are these\nThou bringest flashing? Torches savage-wild\nAnd far from mine old dreams.--Alas, my child,\nHow little dreamed I then of wars or red\nSpears of the Greek to lay thy bridal bed!\nGive me thy brand; it hath no holy blaze\nThus in thy frenzy flung. Nor all thy days\nNor all thy griefs have changed them yet, nor learned\nWisdom.--Ye women, bear the pine half burned\nTo the chamber back; let your drowned eyes\nAnswer the music of these bridal cries!\n[She takes the torch and gives it to one of the women.\nCASSANDRA.\nO Mother, fill mine hair with happy flowers,\nAnd speed me forth. Yea, if my spirit cowers,\nDrive me with wrath! So liveth Loxias,\nA bloodier bride than ever Helen was\nGo I to Agamemnon, Lord most high\nOf Hellas! . . . I shall kill him, mother; I\nShall kill him, and lay waste his house with fire\nAs he laid ours. My brethren and my sire\nShall win again . . .\n(Checking herself) But part I must let be,\nAnd speak not. Not the axe that craveth me,\nAnd more than me; not the dark wanderings\nOf mother-murder that my bridal brings,\nAnd all the House of Atreus down, down, down . . .\nNay, I will show thee. Even now this town\nIs happier than the Greeks. I know the power\nOf God is on me: but this little hour,\nWilt thou but listen, I will hold him back!\nOne love, one woman's beauty, o'er the track\nOf hunted Helen, made their myriads fall.\nAnd this their King so wise, who ruleth all,\nWhat wrought he? Cast out Love that Hate might feed:\nGave to his brother his own child, his seed\nOf gladness, that a woman fled, and fain\nTo fly for ever, should be turned again!\nSo the days waned, and armies on the shore\nOf Simois stood and strove and died. Wherefore?\nNo man had moved their landmarks; none had shook\nTheir walled towns.--And they whom Ares took,\nHad never seen their children: no wife came\nWith gentle arms to shroud the limbs of them\nFor burial, in a strange and angry earth\nLaid dead. And there at home, the same long dearth:\nWomen that lonely died, and aged men\nWaiting for sons that ne'er should turn again,\nNor know their graves, nor pour drink-offerings,\nTo still the unslaked dust. These be the things\nThe conquering Greek hath won!\nBut we--what pride,\nWhat praise of men were sweeter?--fighting died\nTo save our people. And when war was red\nAround us, friends upbore the gentle dead\nHome, and dear women's heads about them wound\nWhite shrouds, and here they sleep in the old ground\nBeloved. And the rest long days fought on,\nDwelling with wives and children, not alone\nAnd joyless, like these Greeks.\nAnd Hector's woe,\nWhat is it? He is gone, and all men know\nHis glory, and how true a heart he bore.\nIt is the gift the Greek hath brought! Of yore\nMen saw him not, nor knew him. Yea, and even\nParis hath loved withal a child of heaven:\nElse had his love but been as others are.\nWould ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!\nYet if war come, there is a crown in death\nFor her that striveth well and perisheth\nUnstained: to die in evil were the stain!\nTherefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain,\nNor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foe\nAnd mine by this my wooing is brought low.\nTALTHYBIUS (at last breaking through the spell that has held him).\nI swear, had not Apollo made thee mad,\nNot lightly hadst thou flung this shower of bad\nBodings, to speed my General o'er the seas!\n'Fore God, the wisdoms and the greatnesses\nOf seeming, are they hollow all, as things\nOf naught? This son of Atreus, of all kings\nMost mighty, hath so bowed him to the love\nOf this mad maid, and chooseth her above\nAll women! By the Gods, rude though I be,\nI would not touch her hand!\nLook thou; I see\nThy lips are blind, and whatso words they speak,\nPraises of Troy or shamings of the Greek,\nI cast to the four winds! Walk at my side\nIn peace! . . . And heaven content him of his bride!\n[He moves as though to go, but turns to HECUBA,\nand speaks more gently.\nAnd thou shalt follow to Odysseus' host\nWhen the word comes. 'Tis a wise queen thou go'st\nTo serve, and gentle: so the Ithacans say.\nCASSANDRA (seeing for the first time the Herald and all the scene).\nHow fierce a slave O Heralds, Heralds! Yea,\nVoices of Death; and mists are over them\nOf dead men's anguish, like a diadem,\nThese weak abhorred things that serve the hate\nOf kings and peoples! . . .\nTo Odysseus' gate\nMy mother goeth, say'st thou? Is God's word\nAs naught, to me in silence ministered,\nThat in this place she dies? . . . (To herself) No\nmore; no more!\nWhy should I speak the shame of them, before\nThey come? . . . Little he knows, that hard-beset\nSpirit, what deeps of woe await him yet;\nTill all these tears of ours and harrowings\nOf Troy, by his, shall be as golden things.\nTen years behind ten years athwart his way\nWaiting: and home, lost and unfriended . . .\nNay :\nWhy should Odesseus' labours vex my breath ?\nOn; hasten; guide me to the house of Death,\nTo lie beside my bridegroom! . . .\nThou Greek King,\nWho deem'st thy fortune now so high a thing,\nThou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see,\nIn darkness, not in light, awaiting thee:\nAnd with thee, with thee . . . there, where yawneth plain\nA rift of the hills, raging with winter rain,\nDead . . . and out-cast . . . and naked . . . It is I\nBeside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry,\nAnd ravin on God's chosen!\n[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the\nwreaths.\nO, ye wreaths!\nYe garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes\nAbout me; shapes of joyance mystical;\nBegone! I have forgot the festival,\nForgot the joy. Begone! I tear ye, so,\nFrom off me! . . . Out on the swift winds they go.\nWith flesh still clean I give them back to thee,\nStill white, O God, O light that leadest me!\n[Turning upon the Herald.\nWhere lies the galley? Whither shall I tread?\nSee that your watch be set, your sail be spread.\nThe wind comes quick! . . . Three Powers--marks me thou!--\nThere be in Hell, and one walks with thee now!\nMother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweet\nCity, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great\nSire that begat us; but a space, ye Dead,\nAnd I am with you: yea, with crowned head\nI come, and shining from the fires that feed\nOn these that slay us now, and all their seed!\n[She goes out, followed by TALTHYBIUS and the\nSoldiers; HECUBA, after waiting for an\ninstant motionless, falls to the ground.\nLEADER OF CHORUS\nThe Queen, ye Watchers! See, she falls, she falls,\nRigid without a word! O sorry thralls,\nToo late! And will ye leave her downstricken,\nA woman, and so old? Raise her again!\n[Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses\ntheir aid and speaks without rising.\nHECUBA\nLet lie . . . the love we seek not is no love . . .\nThis ruined body! Is the fall thereof\nToo deep for all that now is over me\nOf anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be?\nYe Gods . . . Alas! Why call on things so weak\nFor aid? Yet there is something that doth seek,\nCrying, for God, when one of us hath woe.\nO, I will think of things gone long ago\nAnd weave them to a song, like one more tear\nIn the heart of misery. . . . All kings we were;\nAnd I must wed a king. And sons I brought\nMy lord King, many sons . . . nay, that were naught;\nBut high strong princes, of all Troy the best.\nHellas nor Troas nor the garnered East\nHeld such a mother! And all these things beneath\nThe Argive spear I saw cast down in death,\nAnd shore these tresses at the dead men's feet.\nYea, and the gardener of my garden great,\nIt was not any noise of him nor tale\nI wept for; these eyes saw him, when the pale\nWas broke, and there at the altar Priam fell\nMurdered, and round him all his citadel\nSacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold,\nMeet to be brides of mighty kings, behold,\n'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone;\nAnd no hope left, that I shall look upon\nTheir faces any more, nor they on mine.\nAnd now my feet tread on the utmost line:\nAn old, old slave-woman, I pass below\nMine enemies' gates; and whatso task they know\nFor this age basest, shall be mine; the door,\nBowing, to shut and open. . . . I that bore\nHector! . . . and meal to grind, and this racked head\nBend to the stones after a royal bed;\nTorn rags about me, aye, and under them\nTorn flesh; 'twill make a woman sick for shame!\nWoe's me; and all that one man's arms might hold\nOne woman, what long seas have o'er me rolled\nAnd roll for ever! O my child, whose white\nSoul laughed amid the laughter of God's light,\nCassandra, what hands and how strange a day\nHave loosed thy zone! And thou, Polyxena,\nWhere art thou? And my sons? Not any seed\nOf man nor woman now shall help my need.\nWhy raise me any more? What hope have I\nTo hold me? Take this slave that once trod high\nIn Ilion; cast her on her bed of clay\nRock-pillowed, to lie down, and pass away\nWasted with tears. And whatso man they call\nHappy, believe not ere the last day fall!\n___________________\nChorus. [Strophe.\nO Muse, be near me now, and make\nA strange song for Ilion's sake,\nTill a tone of tears be about mine ears\nAnd out of my lips a music break\nFor Troy, Troy, and the end of the years:\nWhen the wheels of the Greek above me pressed,\nAnd the mighty horse-hoofs beat my breast;\nAnd all around were the Argive spears\nA towering Steed of golden rein-\nO gold without, dark steel within!-\nRamped in our gates; and all the plain\nLay silent where the Greeks had been.\nAnd a cry broke from all the folk\nGathered above on Ilion's rock:\n\"Up, up, O fear is over now!\nTo Pallas, who hath saved us living,\nTo Pallas bear this victory-vow!\"\nThen rose the old man from his room,\nThe merry damsel left her loom,\nAnd each bound death about his brow\nWith minstrelsy and high thanksgiving!\n[Antistrophe.\nO, swift were all in Troy that day,\nAnd girt them to the portal-way,\nMarvelling at that mountain Thing\nSmooth-carven, where the Argives lay,\nAnd wrath, and Ilion's vanquishing:\nMeet gift for her that spareth not,\nHeaven's yokeless Rider. Up they brought\nThrough the steep gates her offering:\nLike some dark ship that climbs the shore\nOn straining cables, up, where stood\nHer marble throne, her hallowed floor,\nWho lusted for her people's blood.\nA very weariness of joy\nFell with the evening over Troy:\nAnd lutes of Afric mingled there\nWith Phrygian songs: and many a maiden,\nWith white feet glancing light as air,\nMade happy music through the gloom:\nAnd fires on many an inward room\nAll night broad-flashing, flung their glare\nOn laughing eyes and slumber-laden.\nA MAIDEN.\nI was among the dancers there\nTo Artemis, and glorying sang\nHer of the Hills, the Maid most fair,\nDaughter of Zeus: and, lo, there rang\nA shout out of the dark, and fell\nDeathlike from street to street, and made\nA silence in the citadel:\nAnd a child cried, as if afraid,\nAnd hid him in his mother's veil.\nThen stalked the Slayer from his den,\nThe hand of Pallas served her well!\nO blood, blood of Troy was deep\nAbout the streets and altars then:\nAnd in the wedded rooms of sleep,\nLo, the desolate dark alone,\nAnd headless things, men stumbled on.\nAnd forth, lo, the women go,\nThe crown of War, the crown of Woe,\nTo bear the children of the foe\nAnd weep, weep, for Ilion!\n___________________\n[As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching\nfrom the town, laden with spoils. On it\nsits a mourning Woman with a child in\nher arms.\nLEADER.\nLo, yonder on the heaped crest\nOf a Greek wain, Andromache,\nAs one that o'er an unknown sea\nTosseth; and on her wave-borne breast\nHer loved one clingeth, Hector's child,\nAstyanax . . . O most forlorn\nOf women, whither go'st thou, borne\n'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piled\nSpoils of the dead, and pageantry\nOf them that hunted Ilion down?\nAye, richy thy new lord shall crown\nThe mountain shrines of Thessaly!\nANDROMACHE. [Strophe I.\nForth to the Greek I go,\nDriven as a beast is driven.\nHEC. Woe, woe!\nAND. Nay, mine is woe:\nWoe to none other given,\nAnd the song and the crown therefor!\nHEC. O Zeus!\nAND. He hates thee sore!\nHEC. Children!\nAND. No more, no more\nTo aid thee: their strife is striven!\nHECUBA. [Antistrophe I.\nTroy, Troy is gone!\nAND. Yea, and her treasure parted.\nHEC. Gone, gone, mine own\nChildren, the noble-hearted!\nAND. Sing sorrow. . . .\nHEC. For me, for me!\nAND. Sing for the Great City,\nThat falleth, falleth to be\nA shadow, a fire departed.\nANDROMACHE.\n[Strophe 2.\nCome to me, O my lover!\nHEC. The dark shroudeth him over,\nMy flesh, woman, not thine, not thine!\nAND. Make of thine arms my cover!\nHECUBA.\n[Antistrophe 2.\nO thou whose wound was deepest,\nThou that my children keepest,\nPriam, Priam, O age-worn King,\nGather me where thou sleepest.\nANDROMACHE (her hands upon her heart).\n[Strophe 3.\nO here is the deep of desire,\nHEC. (How? And is this not woe?)\nAND. For a city burned with fire;\nHEC. (It beateth, blow on blow.)\nAND. God's wrath for Paris, thy son, that he died not\nlong ago:\nWho sold for his evil love\nTroy and the towers thereof:\nTherefore the dead men lie\nNaked, beneath the eye\nOf Pallas, and vultures croak\nAnd flap for joy:\nSo Love hath laid his yoke\nOn the neck of Troy!\nHECUBA. [Antistrophe 3.\nO mine own land, my home,\nAND. (I weep for thee, left forlorn,)\nHEC. See'st thou what end is come?\nAND. (And the house where my babes were born.)\nHEC. A desolate Mother we leave, O children, a City\nof scorn:\nEven as the sound of a song\nLeft by the way, but long\nRemembered, a tune of tears\nFalling where no man hears,\nIn the old house, as rain,\nFor things loved of yore:\nBut the dead hath lost his pain\nAnd weeps no more.\nLEADER.\nHow sweet are tears to them in bitter stress,\nAnd sorrow, and all the songs of heaviness.\nANDROMACHE.\nMother of him of old, whose mighty spear\nSmote Greeks like chaff, see'st thou what things are here?\nHECUBA.\nI see God's hand, that buildeth a great crown\nFor littleness, and hath cast the mighty down.\nANDROMACHE.\nI and my babe are driven among the droves\nOf plundered cattle. O, when fortune moves\nSo swift, the high heart like a slave beats low.\nHECUBA.\n'Tis fearful to be helpless. Men but now\nHave taken Cassandra, and I strove in vain.\nANDROMACHE.\nAh, woe is me; hath Ajax come again?\nBut other evil yet is at thy gate.\nHECUBA.\nNay, Daughter, beyond number, beyond weight\nMy evils are! Doom raceth against doom.\nANDROMACHE.\nPolyxena across Achilles' tomb\nLies slain, a gift flung to the dreamless dead.\nHECUBA.\nMy sorrow! . . . 'Tis but what Talthybius said:\nSo plain a riddle, and I read it not.\nANDROMACHE.\nI saw her lie, and stayed this chariot;\nAnd raiment wrapt on her dead limbs, and beat\nMy breast for her.\nHECUBA (to herself).\nO the foul sin of it!\nThe wickedness! My child. My child! Again\nI cry to thee. How cruelly art thou slain!\nANDROMACHE.\nShe hath died her death, and howso dark it be,\nHer death is sweeter than my misery.\nHECUBA.\nDeath cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup\nOf Death is empty, and Life hath always hope.\nANDROMACHE.\nO Mother, having ears, hear thou this word\nFear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirred\nWith joy. To die is only not to be;\nAnd better to be dead than grievously\nLiving. They have no pain, they ponder not\nTheir own wrong. But the living that is brought\nFrom joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam,\nAs in a desert, lost, from its old home.\nThy daughter lieth now as one unborn,\nDead, and naught knowing of the lust and scorn\nThat slew her. And I . . . long since I drew my bow\nStraight at the heart of good fame; and I know\nMy shaft hit; and for that am I the more\nFallen from peace. All that men praise us for,\nI loved for Hector's sake, and sought to win.\nI knew that alway, be there hurt therein\nOr utter innocence, to team abroad\nHath ill report for women; so I trod\nDown the desire thereof, and walked my way\nIn mine own garden. And light words and gay\nParley of women never passed my door.\nThe thoughts of mine own heart . . . I craved no\nmore . . .\nSpoke with me, and I was happy. Constantly\nI brought fair silence and a tranquil eye\nFor Hector's greeting, and watched well the way\nOf living, where to guide and where obey.\nAnd, lo! some rumour of this peace, being gone\nForth to the Greek, hath cursed me. Achilles' son,\nSo soon as I was taken, for his thrall\nChose me. I shall do service in the hall\nOf them that slew . . . How? Shall I thrust aside\nHector's beloved face, and open wide\nMy heart to this new lord? Oh, I should stand\nA traitor to the dead! And if my hand\nAnd flesh shrink from him . . . lo, wrath and despite\nO'er all the house, and I a slave!\nOne night,\nOne night . . . aye, men have said it . . . maketh tame\nA woman in a man's arms. . . . O shame, shame!\nWhat woman's lips can so forswear her dead,\nAnd give strange kisses in another's bed?\nWhy, not a dumb beast, not a colt will run\nIn the yoke untroubled, when her mate is gone--\nA thing not in God's image, dull, unmoved\nOf reason. O my Hector! best beloved,\nThat, being mine, wast all in all to me,\nMy prince, my wise one, O my majesty\nOf valiance! No man's touch had ever come\nNear me, when thou from out my father's home\nDidst lead me and make me thine. . . . And thou art\ndead,\nAnd I war-flung to slavery and the bread\nOf shame in Hellas, over bitter seas!\nWhat knoweth she of evils like to these,\nThat dead Polyxena, thou weepest for?\nThere liveth not in my life any more\nThe hope that others have. Nor will I tell\nThe lie to mine own heart, that aught is well\nOr shall be well. . . . Yet, O, to dream were sweet!\nLEADER.\nThy feet have trod the pathway of my feet,\nAnd thy clear sorrow teacheth me mine own.\nHECUBA.\nLo, yonder ships: I ne'er set foot on one,\nBut tales and pictures tell, when over them\nBreaketh a storm not all too strong to stem,\nEach man strives hard, the tiller gripped, the mast\nManned, the hull baled, to face it: till at last\nToo strong breaks the o'erwhelming sea: to, then\nThey cease, and yield them up is broken men\nTo fate and the wild waters. Even so\nI in my many sorrows bear me low,\nNor curse, nor strive that other things may be.\nThe great wave rolled from God hath conquered me.\nBut, O, let Hector and the fates that fell\nOn Hector, sleep. Weep for him ne'er so well,\nThy weeping shall not wake him. Honour thou\nThe new lord that is set above thee now,\nAnd make of thine own gentle piety\nA prize to lure his heart. So shalt thou be\nA strength to them that love us, and--God knows,\nIt may be--rear this babe among his foes,\nMy Hector's child, to manhood and great aid\nFor Ilion. So her stones may yet be laid\nOne on another, if God will, and wrought\nAgain to a city! Ah, how thought to thought\nStill beckons! . . . But what minion of the Greek\nIs this that cometh, with new words to speak?\n[Enter TALTHYBIUS with a band of Soldiers.\nHe comes forward slowly and with evident\ndisquiet.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nSpouse of the noblest heart that beat in Troy,\nAndromache, hate me not! 'Tis not in joy\nI tell thee. But the people and the Kings\nHave with one voice . . .\nANDROMACHE.\nWhat is it? Evil things\nAre on thy lips!\nTALTHYBIUS.\n'Tis ordered, this child . . .\nOh, How can I tell her of it?\nANDROMACHE.\nDoth he not go\nWith me, to the same master?\nTALTHYBIUS.\nThere is none\nIn Greece, shall e'er be master of thy son.\nANDROMACHE.\nHow? Will they leave him here to build again\nThe wreck? . . .\nTALTHYBIUS.\nI know not how to tell thee plain!\nANDROMACHE.\nThou hast a gentle heart . . . if it be ill,\nAnd not good, news thou hidest!\nTALTHYBIUS.\n'Tis their will\nThy son shall die. . . . The whole vile thing is said\nNow!\nANDROMACHE.\nOh, I could have borne mine enemy's bed!\nTALTHYBIUS.\nAnd speaking in the council of the host\nOdysseus hath prevailed-\nANDROMACHE.\nO lost! lost! lost! . . .\nForgive me! It is not easy . . .\nTALTHYBIUS.\n. . . That the son\nOf one so perilous be not fostered on\nTo manhood-\nANDROMACHE.\nGod; may his own counsel fall\nOn his own sons!\nTALTHYBIUS.\n. . . But from this crested wall\nOf Troy be dashed, and die. . . . Nay, let the thing\nBe done. Thou shalt be wiser so. Nor cling\nSo fiercely to him. Suffer as a brave\nWoman in bitter pain; nor think to have\nStrength which thou hast not. Look about thee here!\nCanst thou see help, or refuge anywhere?\nThy land is fallen and thy lord, and thou\nA prisoner and alone, one woman; how\nCanst battle against us? For thine own good\nI would not have thee strive, nor make ill blood\nAnd shame about thee. . . . Ah, nor move thy lips\nIn silence there, to cast upon the ships\nThy curse! One word of evil to the host,\nThis babe shall have no burial, but be tossed\nNaked. . . . Ah, peace! And bear as best thou may,\nWar's fortune. So thou shalt not go thy way\nLeaving this child unburied; nor the Greek\nBe stern against thee, if thy heart be meek!\nANDROMACHE (to the child).\nGo, die, my best-beloved, my cherished one,\nIn fierce men's hands, leaving me here alone.\nThy father was too valiant; that is why\nThey slay thee! Other children, like to die,\nMight have been spared for that. But on thy head\nHis good is turned to evil.\nO thou bed\nAnd bridal; O the joining of the hand,\nThat led me long ago to Hector's land\nTo bear, O not a lamb for Grecian swords\nTo slaughter, but a Prince o'er all the hordes\nEnthroned of wide-flung Asia. . . . Weepest thou?\nNay, why, my little one? Thou canst not know.\nAnd Father will not come; he will not come;\nNot once, the great spear flashing, and the tomb\nRiven to set thee free! Not one of all\nHis brethren, nor the might of Ilion's wall.\nHow shall it be? One horrible spring . . . deep, deep\nDown. And thy neck . . . Ah God, so cometh sleep! . . .\nAnd none to pity thee! . . . Thou little thing\nThat curlest in my arms, what sweet scents cling\nAll round thy neck! Beloved; can it be\nAll nothing, that this bosom cradled thee\nAnd fostered; all the weary nights, wherethrough\nI watched upon thy sickness, till I grew\nWasted with watching? Kiss me. This one time;\nNot ever again. Put up thine arms, and climb\nAbout my neck: now, kiss me, lips to lips. . . .\nO, ye have found an anguish that outstrips\nAll tortures of the East, ye gentle Greeks!\nWhy will ye slay this innocent, that seeks\nNo wrong? . . . O Helen, Helen, thou ill tree\nThat Tyndareus planted, who shall deem of thee\nAs child of Zeus? O, thou hast drawn thy breath\nFrom many fathers, Madness, Hate, red Death,\nAnd every rotting poison of the sky!\nZeus knows thee not, thou vampire, draining dry.\nGreece and the world! God hate thee and destroy,\nThat with those beautiful eyes hast blasted Troy,\nAnd made the far-famed plains a waste withal.\nQuick! take him: drag him: cast him from the wall,\nIf cast ye will! Tear him, ye beasts, be swift!\nGod hath undone me, and I cannot lift\nOne hand, one hand, to save my child from death . . .\nO, hide my head for shame: fling me beneath\nYour galleys' benches! . . .\n[She swoons: then half-rising.\nQuick: I must begone\nTo the bridal. . . . I have lost my child, my own!\n[The Soldiers close round her.\nLEADER.\nO Troy ill-starred; for one strange woman, one\nAbhorred kiss, how are thine hosts undone!\nTALTHYBIUS (bending over ANDROMACHE and gradually\ntaking the Child from her).\nCome, Child: let be that clasp of love\nOutwearied! Walk thy ways with me,\nUp to the crested tower, above\nThy father's wall . . . Where they decree\nThy soul shall perish.--Hold him: hold!--\nWould God some other man might ply\nThese charges, one of duller mould,\nAnd nearer to the iron than I!\nHECUBA.\nO Child, they rob us of our own,\nChild of my Mighty One outworn:\nOurs, ours thou art!--Can aught be done\nOf deeds, can aught of pain be borne,\nTo aid thee?--Lo, this beaten head,\nThis bleeding bosom! These I spread\nAs gifts to thee. I can thus much.\nWoe, woe for Troy, and woe for thee!\nWhat fall yet lacketh, ere we touch\nThe last dead deep of misery?\n[The Child who has started back from TALTHYBIUS,\nis taken up by one of the Soldiers\nand borne back towards the city, while\nANDROMACHE is set again on the Chariot and\ndriven off towards the ships. TALTHYBIUS\ngoes with the Child.\n______________________\nCHORUS.\n[Strophe I.\nIn Salamis, filled with the foaming\nOf billows and murmur of bees,\nOld Telamon stayed from his roaming,\nLong ago, on a throne of the seas;\nLooking out on the hills olive-laden,\nEnchanted, where first from the earth\nThe grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden\nAthena had birth;\nA soft grey crown for a city\nBeloved, a City of Light:\nYet he rested not there, nor had pity,\nBut went forth in his might,\nWhere Heracles wandered, the lonely\nBow-bearer, and lent him his hands\nFor the wrecking of one land only,\nOf Ilion, Ilion only,\nMost hated of lands!\n[Antistrophe I.\nOf the bravest of Hellas he made him\nA ship-folk, in wrath for the Steeds,\nAnd sailed the wide waters, and stayed him\nAt last amid Simois' reeds;\nAnd the oars beat slow in the river,\nAnd the Iong ropes held in the strand,\nAnd he felt for his bow and his quiver,\nThe wrath of his hand.\nAnd the old king died; and the towers\nThat Phoebus had builded did fall,\nAnd his wrath, as a flame that devours,\nRan red over all;\nAnd the fields and the woodlands lay blasted,\nLong ago. Yea, twice hath the Sire\nUplifted his hand and downcast it\nOn the wall of the Dardan, downcast it\nAs a sword and as fire.\n[Strophe 2.\nIn vain, all in vain,\nO thou 'mid the wine-jars golden\nThat movest in delicate joy,\nGanymedes, child of Troy,\nThe lips of the Highest drain\nThe cup in thine hand upholden:\nAnd thy mother, thy mother that bore thee,\nIs wasted with fire and torn;\nAnd the voice of her shores is heard,\nWild, as the voice of a bird,\nFor lovers aind children before thee\nCrying, and mothers outworn.\nAnd the pools of thy bathing are perished,\nAnd the wind-strewn ways of thy feet:\nYet thy face as aforetime is cherished\nOf Zeus, and the breath of it sweet;\nYea, the beauty of Calm is upon it\nIn houses at rest and afar.\nBut thy land, He hath wrecked and o'erthrown it\nIn the wailing of war.\n[Antistrophe 2.\nO Love, ancient Love,\nOf old to the Dardan given;\nLove of the Lords of the Sky;\nHow didst thou lift us high\nIn Ilion, yea, and above\nAll cities, as wed with heaven!\nFor Zeus--O leave it unspoken:\nBut alas for the love of the Morn;\nMorn of the milk-white wing,\nThe gentle, the earth-loving,\nThat shineth on battlements broken\nIn Troy, and a people forlorn!\nAnd, lo, in her bowers Tithonus,\nOur brother, yet sleeps as of old:\nO, she too hath loved us and known us,\nAnd the Steeds of her star, flashing gold,\nStooped hither and bore him above us;\nThen blessed we the Gods in our joy.\nBut all that made them to love us\nHath perished from Troy.\n______________________\n[As the song ceases, the King MENELAUS enters,\nrichly armed and followed by a bodyguard\nof Soldiers. He is a prey to violent and\nconflicting emotions.\nMENELAUS.\nHow bright the face of heaven, and how sweet\nThe air this day, that layeth at my feet\nThe woman that I . . . Nay: 'twas not for her\nI came. 'Twas for the man, the cozener\nAnd thief, that ate with me and stole away\nMy bride. But Paris lieth, this long day,\nBy God's grace, under the horse-hoofs of the Greek,\nAnd round him all his land. And now I seek . . .\nCurse her! I scarce can speak the name she bears,\nThat was my wife. Here with the prisoners\nThey keep her, in these huts, among the hordes\nOf numbered slaves.--The host whose labouring swords\nWon her, have given her up to me, to fill\nMy pleasure; perchance kill her, or not kill,\nBut lead her home.--Methinks I have foregone\nThe slaying of Helen here in Ilion . . .\nOver the long seas I will bear her back,\nAnd there, there, cast her out to whatso wrack\nOf angry death they may devise, who know\nTheir dearest dead for her in Ilion.-Ho!\nYe soldiers! Up into the chambers where\nShe croucheth! Grip the long blood-reeking hair,\nAnd drag her to mine eyes . . . [Controlling himself.\nAnd when there come\nFair breezes, my long ships shall bear her home.\n[The Soldiers go to force open the door of the\nsecond hut on the left.\nHECUBA.\nThou deep Base of the World, and thou high Throne\nAbove the World, whoe'er thou art, unknown\nAnd hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be,\nOr Reason of our Reason; God, to thee\nI lift my praise, seeing the silent road\nThat bringeth justice ere the end be trod\nTo all that breathes and dies.\nMENELAUS (turning).\nHa! who is there\nThat prayeth heaven, and in so strange a prayer?\nHECUBA.\nI bless thee, Menelaus, I bless thee,\nIf thou wilt slay her! Only fear to see\nHer visage, lest she snare thee and thou fall!\nShe snareth strong men's eyes; she snareth tall\nCities; and fire from out her eateth up\nHouses. Such magic hath she, as a cup\nOf death! . . . Do I not know her? Yea, and thou,\nAnd these that lie around, do they not know?\n[The Soldiers return from the hut and stand\naside to let HELEN pass between them.\nShe comes through them, gentle and\nunafraid; there is no disorder in her\nraiment.\nHELEN.\nKing Menelaus, thy first deed might make\nA woman fear. Into my chamber brake\nThine armed men, and lead me wrathfully.\nMethinks, almost, I know thou hatest me.\nYet I would ask thee, what decree is gone\nForth for my life or death?\nMENELAUS (struggling with his emotion).\nThere was not one\nThat scrupled for thee. All, all with one will\nGave thee to me, whom thou hast wronged, to kill!\nHELEN.\nAnd is it granted that I speak, or no,\nIn answer to them ere I die, to show\nI die most wronged and innocent?\nMENELAUS.\nI seek\nTo kill thee, woman; not to hear thee speak!\nHECUBA.\nO hear her! She must never die unheard,\nKing Menelaus! And give me the word\nTo speak in answer! All the wrong she wrought\nAway from thee, in Troy, thou knowest not.\nThe whole tale set together is a death\nToo sure; she shall not 'scape thee!\nMENELAUS.\n'Tis but breath\nAnd time. For thy sake, Hecuba, if she need\nTo speak, I grant the prayer. I have no heed\nNor mercy--let her know it well--for her!\nHELEN.\nIt may be that, how false or true soe'er\nThou deem me, I shall win no word from thee.\nSo sore thou holdest me thine enemy.\nYet I will take what words I think thy heart\nHoldeth of anger: and in even part\nSet my wrong and thy wrong, and all that fell.\n[Pointing to HECUBA.\nShe cometh first, who bare the seed and well\nOf springing sorrow, when to life she brought\nParis: and that old King, who quenched not\nQuick in the spark, ere yet he woke to slay,\nThe firebrand's image.--But enough: a day\nCame, and this Paris judged beneath the trees\nThree Crowns of Life, three diverse Goddesses.\nThe gift of Pallas was of War, to lead\nHis East in conquering battles, and make bleed\nThe hearths of Hellas. Hera held a Throne--\nIf majesties he craved--to reign alone\nFrom Phrygia to the last realm of the West.\nAnd Cypris, if he deemed her loveliest,\nBeyond all heaven, made dreams about my face\nAnd for her grace gave me. And, lo! her grace\nWas judged the fairest, and she stood above\nThose twain.--Thus was I loved, and thus my love\nHath holpen Hellas. No fierce Eastern crown\nIs o'er your lands, no spear hath cast them down.\nO, it was well for Hellas! But for me\nMost ill; caught up and sold across the sea\nFor this my beauty; yea, dishonoured\nFor that which else had been about my head\nA crown of honour. . . . Ah, I see thy thought;\nThe first plain deed, 'tis that I answer not,\nHow in the dark out of thy house I fled . . .\nThere came the Seed of Fire, this woman's seed;\nCame--O, a Goddess great walked with him then--\nThis Alexander, Breaker-down-of-Men,\nThis Paris, Strength-is-with-him; whom thou, whom--\nO false and light of heart--thou in thy room\nDidst leave, and spreadest sail for Cretan seas,\nFar, far from me! . . . And yet, how strange it is!\nI ask not thee; I ask my own sad thought,\nWhat was there in my heart, that I forgot\nMy home and land and all I loved, to fly\nWith a strange man? Surely it was not I,\nBut Cypris, there! Lay thou thy rod on her,\nAnd be more high than Zeus and bitterer,\nWho o'er all other spirits hath his throne,\nBut knows her chain must bind him. My wrong done\nHath its own pardon. . . .\nOne word yet thou hast,\nMethinks, of righteous seeming. When at last\nThe earth for Paris oped and all was o'er,\nAnd her strange magic bound my feet no more,\nWhy kept I still his house, why fled not I\nTo the Argive ships? . . . Ah, how I strove to fly!\nThe old Gate-Warden could have told thee all,\nMy husband, and the watchers from the wall;\nIt was not once they took me, with the rope\nTied, and this body swung in the air, to grope\nIts way toward thee, from that dim battlement.\nAh, husband still, how shall thy hand be bent\nTo slay me? Nay, if Right be come at last,\nWhat shalt thou bring but comfort for pains past,\nAnd harbour for a woman storm-driven:\nA woman borne away by violent men:\nAnd this one birthright of my beauty, this\nThat might have been my glory, lo, it is\nA stamp that God hath burned, of slavery!\nAlas! and if thou cravest still to be\nAs one set above gods, inviolate,\n'Tis but a fruitless longing holds thee yet.\nLEADER.\nO Queen, think of thy children and thy land,\nAnd break her spell! The sweet soft speech, the hand\nAnd heart so fell: it maketh me afraid.\nHECUBA.\nMeseems her goddesses first cry mine aid\nAgainst these lying lips! . . . Not Hera, nay,\nNor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay,\nTo barter their own folk, Argos and brave\nAthens, to be trod down, the Phrygian's slave,\nAll for vain glory and a shepherd's prize\nOn Ida! Wherefore should great Hera's eyes\nSo hunger to be fair? She doth not use\nTo seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus.\nAnd maiden Pallas . . . did some strange god's face\nBeguile her, that she craved for loveliness,\nWho chose from God one virgin gift above\nAll gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love?\nAh, deck not out thine own heart's evil springs\nBy making spirits of heaven as brutish things\nAnd cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all!\nAnd Cypris must take ship--fantastical!\nSail with my son and enter at the gate\nTo seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sate\nAt peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and all\nAmyclae with thee, under Ilion's wall.\nMy son was passing beautiful, beyond\nHis peers; and thine own heart, that saw and conned\nHis face, became a spirit enchanting thee.\nFor all wild things that in mortality\nHave being, are Aphrodite; and the name\nShe bears in heaven is born and writ of them.\nThou sawest him in gold and orient vest\nShining, and lo, a fire about thy breast\nLeapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things,\nPacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings\nWere come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled\nThe Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold,\nTo steep thine arms and splash the towers! How small,\nHow cold that day was Menelaus' hall!\nEnough of that. It was by force my son\nTook thee, thou sayst, and striving. . . . Yet not one\nIn Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer\nRang from thy rooms that night. . . . Castor was there\nTo hear thee, and his brother: both true men,\nNot yet among the stars! And after, when\nThou camest here to Troy, and in thy track\nArgos and all its anguish and the rack\nOf war--Ah God!--perchance men told thee 'Now\nThe Greek prevails in battle': then wouldst thou\nPraise Menelaus, that my son might smart,\nStriving with that old image in a heart\nUncertain still. Then Troy had victories:\nAnd this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes\nWatched Fortune's eyes, to follow hot where she\nLed first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty.\nThy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall\nFar, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall!\nWho found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay,\nHadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way\nOf the sword, that any woman honest-souled\nHad sought long since, loving her lord of old?\nOften and often did I charge thee; 'Go,\nMy daughter; go thy ways. My sons will know\nNew loves. I will give aid, and steal thee past\nThe Argive watch. O give us peace at last,\nUs and our foes!' But out thy spirit cried\nAs at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy pride\nIn Alexander's house, and O, 'twas sweet\nTo hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet.\nThey were great things to thee! . . . And comest thou now\nForth, and hast decked thy bosom and thy brow,\nAnd breathest with thy lord the same blue air,\nThou evil heart? Low, low, with ravaged hair,\nRent raiment, and flesh shuddering, and within--\nO shame at last, not glory for thy sin;\nSo face him if thou canst! . . . Lo, I have done.\nBe true, O King; let Hellas bear her crown\nOf justice. Slay this woman, and upraise\nThe law for evermore: she that betrays\nHer husband's bed, let her be judged and die.\nLEADER.\nBe strong, O King; give judgment worthily\nFor thee and thy great house. Shake off thy long\nReproach; not weak, but iron against the wrong!\nMENELAUS.\nThy thought doth walk with mine in one intent.\n'Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she went\nForth to a stranger's bed. And all her fair\nTale of enchantment, 'tis a thing of air! . . .\n[Turning furiously upon HELEN.\nOut, woman! There be those that seek thee yet\nWith stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt\nBe paid at last. And ere this night is o'er\nThy dead face shall dishonour me no more!\nHELEN (kneeling before him and embracing him).\nBehold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees;\nLay not upon my head the phantasies\nOf Heaven. Remember all, and slay me not!\nHECUBA.\nRemember them she murdered, them that fought\nBeside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!\nMENELAUS.\nPeace, aged woman, peace! 'Tis not for her;\nShe is as naught to me.\n(To the Soldiers) . . . March on before,\nYe ministers, and tend her to the shore . . .\nAnd have some chambered galley set for her,\nWhere she may sail the seas.\nHECUBA.\nIf thou be there,\nI charge thee, let not her set foot therein!\nMENELAUS.\nHow? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?\nHECUBA.\nA lover once, will alway love again.\nMENELAUS.\nIf that he loved be evil, he will fain\nHate it! . . . Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done.\nSome other ship shall bear her, not mine own. . . .\nThou counsellest very well . . . And when we come\nTo Argos, then . . . O then some pitiless doom\nWell-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind\nOnce for all time the law on womankind\nOf faithfulness! . . . 'Twill be no easy thing,\nGod knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling\nA chill on the dreams of women, though they be\nWilder of wing and loathed more than she!\n[Exit, followlng HELEN, who is escorted by the Soldiers.\n_______________________\nCHORUS.\nSome Women.\n[Strophe I.\nAnd hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense,\nAnd given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion ?\nThe flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence,\nThe myrrh on the air and the wreathed towers gone?\nAnd Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows,\nThe glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows,\nAnd the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows,\nThe lit house most holy of the Dawn?\nOthers.\n[Antistrophe I.\nThe sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy,\nThe dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer:\nThe Golden Images and the Moons of Troy,\nThe twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear:\nMy heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high,\nWere they all to thee as nothing, thou throned in the sky,\nThroned in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die,\nPasseth in the wind and the flare?\nA Woman.\n[Strophe 2.\nDear one, O husband mine,\nThou in the dim dominions\nDriftest with waterless lips,\nUnburied; and me the ships\nShall bear o'er the bitter brine,\nStorm-birds upon angry pinions,\nWhere the towers of the Giants shine\nO'er Argos cloudily,\nAnd the riders ride by the sea.\nOthers.\nAnd children still in the Gate\nCrowd and cry,\nA multitude desolate,\nVoices that float and wait\nAs the tears run dry:\n'Mother, alone on the shore\nThey drive me, far from thee:\nLo, the dip of the oar,\nThe black hull on the sea!\nIs it the Isle Immortal,\nSalamis, waits for me?\nIs it the Rock that broods\nOver the sundered floods\nOf Corinth, the ancient portal\nOf Pelops' sovranty ?\nA Woman.\n[Antistrophe 2.\nOut in the waste of foam,\nWhere rideth dark Menelaus,\nCome to us there, O white\nAnd jagged, with wild sea-light\nAnd crashing of oar-blades, come,\nO thunder of God, and slay us:\nWhile our tears are wet for home,\nWhile out in the storm go we,\nSlaves of our enemy!\nOthers.\nAnd, God, may Helen be there,\nWith mirror of gold,\nDecking her face so fair,\nGirl-like; and hear, and stare,\nAnd turn death-cold: N\never, ah, never more\nThe hearth of her home to see,\nNor sand of the Spartan shore,\nNor tombs where her fathers be,\nNor Athena's bronzen Dwelling,\nNor the towers of Pitane;\nFor her face was a dark desire\nUpon Greece, and shame like fire,\nAnd her dead are welling, welling,\nFrom red Simois to the sea!\n______________________\n[TALTHYBIUS, followed by one or two Soldiers\nand bearing the child ASTYANAX dead, is\nseen approaching.\nLEADER.\nAh, change on change! Yet each one racks\nThis land evil manifold;\nUnhappy wives of Troy, behold,\nThey bear the dead Astyanax,\nOur prince, whom bitter Greeks this hour\nHave hurled to death from Ilion's tower.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nOne galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet,\nLapping the wave, to father the last freight\nOf Pyrrhus' spoils for Thessaly. The chief\nHimself long since hath parted, much in grief\nFor PeIeus' sake, his grandsire, whom, men say,\nAcastus, Pelias' son, in war array\nHath driven to exile. Loath enough before\nWas he to linger, and now goes the more\nIn haste, bearing Andromache, his prize.\n'Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes,\nWeeping her fatherland, as o'er the wave\nShe gazed, and speaking words to Hector's grave.\nHowbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done\nFor burial of this babe, thine Hector's son,\nThat now from Ilion's tower is fallen and dead.\nAnd, lo! this great bronze-fronted shield, the dread\nOf many a Greek, that Hector held in fray,\nO never in God's name--so did she pray--\nBe this borne forth to hang in Peleus' hall\nOr that dark bridal chamber, that the wall\nMay hurt her eyes; but here, in Troy o'erthrown,\nInstead of cedar wood and vaulted stone,\nBe this her child's last house. . . . And in thine hands\nShe bade me lay him, to be swathed in hands\nOf death and garments, such as rest to thee\nIn these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she\nHath gone her ways, and, for her master's haste,\nMay no more fold the babe unto his rest.\nHowbeit, so soon as he is garlanded\nAnd robed, we will heap earth above his head\nAnd lift our sails. . . . See all be swiftly done,\nAs thou art bidden. I have saved thee one\nLabour. For as I passed Scamander's stream\nHard by, I let the waters run on him,\nAnd cleansed his wounds.--See, I will go forth now\nAnd break the hard earth for his grave: so thou\nAnd I will haste together, to set free\nOur oars at last to beat the homeward sea!\n[He goes out with his Soldiers, leaving the body\nof the Child in HECUBA'S arms.\nHECUBA.\nSet the great orb of Hector's shield to lie\nHere on the ground. 'Tis bitter that mine eye\nShould see it. . . . O ye Argives, was your spear\nKeen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fear\nThis babe? 'Twas a strange murder for brave men!\nFor fear this babe some day might raise again\nHis fallen land! Had ye so little pride ?\nWhile Hector fought, and thousands at his side,\nYe smote us, and we perished; and now, now,\nWhen all are dead and Ilion lieth low,\nYe dread this innocent! I deem it not\nWisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought. . . .\nAh, what a death hath found thee, little one!\nHadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known\nStrong youth and love and all the majesty\nOf godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee\nAs of one blessed . . . could in any wise\nThese days know blessedness. But now thine eyes\nHave seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soul\nNo knowledge had nor usage of the whole\nRich life that lapt thee round. . . . Poor little child!\nWas it our ancient wall, the circuit piled\nBy loving Gods, so savagely hath rent\nThy curls, these little flowers innocent\nThat were thy mother's garden, where she laid\nHer kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayed\nGrins white above--Ah heaven, I will not see!\nYe tender arms, the same dear mould have ye\nAs his; how from the shoulder loose ye drop\nAnd weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hope\nAnd closed for ever! What false words ye said\nAt daybreak, when he crept into my bed,\nCalled me kind names, and promised: 'Grandmother,\nWhen thou art dead, I will cut close my hair\nAnd lead out all the captains to ride by\nThy tomb.' Why didst thou cheat me so? 'Tis I,\nOld, homeless, childless, that for thee must shed\nCold tears, so young, so miserably dead.\nDear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet,\nThe nursing in my lap; and O, the sweet\nFalling asleep together! All is gone.\nHow should a poet carve the funeral stone\nTo tell thy story true? 'There lieth here\nA babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fear\nSlew him.' Aye, Greece will bless the tale it tells!\nChild, they have left thee beggared of all else\nIn Hector's house; but one thing shalt thou keep,\nThis war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep.\nAlas, thou guardian true of Hector's fair\nLeft arm, how art thou masterless! And there\nI see his handgrip printed on the hold;\nAnd deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolled\nIn battle from the brows and beard of him,\nDrop after drop, are writ about thy rim.\nGo, bring them--such poor garments hazardous\nAs these days leave. God hath not granted us\nWherewith to make much pride. But all I can,\nI give thee, Child of Troy.--O vain is man, W\nho glorieth in his joy and hath no fears:\nWhile to and fro the chances of the years\nDance like an idiot in the wind! And none\nBy any strength hath his own fortune won.\n[During these lines several Women are seen\napproaching with garlands and raiment in\ntheir hands.\nLEADER.\nLo these, who bear thee raiment harvested\nFrom Ilion's slain, to fold upon the dead.\n[During the following scene HECUBA gradually\ntakes the garments and wraps them about\nthe Child.\nHECUBA.\nO not in pride for speeding of the car\nBeyond thy peers, not for the shaft of war\nTrue aimed, as Phrygians use; not any prize\nOf joy for thee, nor splendour in men's eyes,\nThy father's mother lays these offerings\nAbout thee, from the many fragrant things\nThat were all thine of old. But now no more.\nOne woman, loathed of God, hath broke the door\nAnd robbed thy treasure-house, and thy warm breath\nMade cold, and trod thy people down to death!\nCHORUS.\nSome Women.\nDeep in the heart of me\nI feel thine hand,\nMother: and is it he\nDead here, our prince to be,\nAnd lord of the land?\nHECUBA.\nGlory of Phrygian raiment, which my thought\nKept for thy bridal day with some far-sought\nQueen of the East, folds thee for evermore.\nAnd thou, grey Mother, Mother-Shield that bore\nA thousand days of glory, thy last crown\nIs here. . . . Dear Hector's shield! Thou shalt lie down\nUndying with the dead, and lordlier there\nThan all the gold Odysseus' breast can bear,\nThe evil and the strong!\nCHORUS.\nSome Women.\nChild of the Shield-bearer,\nAlas, Hector's child!\nGreat Earth, the All-mother,\nTaketh thee unto her\nWith wailing wild!\nOthers.\nMother of misery,\nGive Death his song!\n(HEC. Woe!) Aye and bitterly\n(HEC. Woe!) We too weep for thee,\nAnd the infinite wrong!\n[During these lines HECUBA, kneeling by the\nbody, has been performing a funeral rite,\nsymbolically staunching the dead Child's\nwounds.\nHECUBA.\nI make thee whole;\nI bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul.\nThis wound and this I heal with linen white:\nO emptiness of aid! . . . Yet let the rite\nBe spoken. This and . . . Nay, not I, but he,\nThy father far away shall comfort thee!\n[She bows her head to the ground and remains\nmotionless and unseeing.\nCHORUS.\nBeat, beat thine head:\nBeat with the wailing chime\nOf hands lifted in time:\nBeat and bleed for the dead.\nWoe is me for the dead!\nHECUBA.\nO Women! Ye, mine own . . .\n[She rises bewildered, as though she had seen a\nvision.\nLEADER.\nHecuba, speak!\nThine are we all. Oh, ere thy bosom break . . .\nHECUBA.\nLo, I have seen the open hand of God;\nAnd in it nothing, nothing, save the rod\nOf mine affliction, and the eternal hate,\nBeyond all lands, chosen and lifted great\nFor Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell\nAnd bulls' blood on the altars! . . . All is well.\nHad He not turned us in His hand, and thrust\nOur high things low and shook our hills as dust,\nWe had not been this splendour, and our wrong\nAn everlasting music for the song\nOf earth and heaven!\nGo, women: lay our dead\nIn his low sepulchre. He hath his meed\nOf robing. And, methinks, but little care\nToucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there\nHave rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we,\nThat dream, we living and our vanity!\n[The Women bear out the dead Child upon the\nshield, singing, when presently flames of\nfire and dim forms are seen among the\nruins of the City.\nCHORUS.\nSome Women.\nWoe for the mother that bare thee, child,\nThread so frail of a hope so high,\nThat Time hath broken: and all men smiled\nAbout thy cradle, and, passing by,\nSpoke of thy father's majesty.\nLow, low, thou liest!\nOthers.\nHa! Who be these on the crested rock?\nFiery hands in the dusk, and a shock\nOf torches flung! What lingereth still,\nO wounded City, of unknown ill,\nEre yet thou diest?\nTALTHYBIUS (coming out through the ruined Wall).\nYe Captains that have charge to wreck this keep\nOf Priam's City, let your torches sleep\nNo more! Up, fling the fire into her heart!\nThen have we done with Ilion, and may part\nIn joy to Hellas from this evil land.\nAnd ye--so hath one word two faces--stand,\nDaughters of Troy, till on your ruined wall\nThe echo of my master's trumpet call\nIn signal breaks: then, forward to the sea,\nWhere the long ships lie waiting.\nAnd for thee,\nO ancient woman most unfortunate,\nFollow: Odysseus' men be here, and wait\nTo guide thee . . . . 'Tis to him thou go'st for thrall.\nHECUBA.\nAh, me! and is it come, the end of all,\nThe very crest and summit of my days?\nI go forth from my land, and all its ways\nAre filled with fire! Bear me, O aged feet,\nA little nearer: I must gaze, and greet\nMy poor town ere she fall.\nFarewell, farewell!\nO thou whose breath was mighty on the swell\nOf orient winds, my Troy! Even thy name\nShall soon be taken from thee. Lo, the flame\nHath thee, and we, thy children, pass away\nTo slavery . . . God! O God of mercy! . . . Nay:\nWhy call I on the Gods? They know, they know,\nMy prayers, and would not hear them long ago.\nQuick, to the flames! O, in thine agony,\nMy Troy, mine own, take me to die with thee!\n[She springs toward the games, but is seized and\nheld by the Soldiers.\nTALTHYBIUS.\nBack! Thou art drunken with thy miseries,\nPoor woman!--Hold her fast, men, till it please\nOdysseus that she come. She was his lot\nChosen from all and portioned. Lose her not!\n[He goes to watch over the burning of the City.\nThe dusk deepens.\nCHORUS.\nDivers Women.\nWoe, woe, woe!\nThou of the Ages, O wherefore fleest thou,\nLord of the Phrygian, Father that made us?\n'Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us?\n'Tis we, thy children! Seest thou, seest thou?\nOthers.\nHe seeth, only his heart is pitiless;\nAnd the land dies: yea, she,\nShe of the Mighty Cities perisheth citiless\nTroy shall no more be!\nOthers.\nWoe, woe, woe!\nIlion shineth afar!\nFire in the deeps thereof,\nFire in the heights above,\nAnd crested walls of War!\nOthers.\nAs smoke on the wing of heaven\nClimbeth and scattereth,\nTorn of the spear and driven,\nThe land crieth for death:\nO stormy battlements that red fire hath riven,\nAnd the sword's angry breath!\n[A new thought comes to HECUBA; she kneels\nand beats the earth with her hands.\nHECUBA. [Strophe.\nO Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O mine own,\nYe have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness lying!\nLEADER.\nNow hast thou found thy prayer, crying to them that\nare gone.\nHECUBA.\nSurely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your head;\nHearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!\nLEADER.\nI, I am near thee;\nI kneel to thy dead to hear thee,\nKneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear\nmy crying!\nHECUBA.\nEven as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they bear,\nLEADER.\n(Pain; O pain!)\nHECUBA.\nWe go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O hear!\nLEADER.\n(Go, and come not again!)\nHECUBA.\nPriam, mine own Priam,\nLying so lowly,\nThou in thy nothingness,\nShelterless, comfortless,\nSee'st thou the thing I am?\nKnow'st thou my bitter stress?\nLEADER.\nNay, thou art naught to him!\nOut of the strife there came,\nOut of the noise and shame,\nMaking his eyelids dim,\nDeath, the Most Holy!\n[The fire and smoke rise constantly higher.\nHECUBA.\n[Antistrophe.\nO high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth,\nYe have found the way of the sword, the fiery and\nblood-red river!\nLEADER.\nFall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the\ngentle earth.\nHECUBA.\nThe dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing;\nIt maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished\nthing!\nLEADER.\nOut on the smoke she goeth,\nAnd her name no man knoweth;\nAnd the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone\nfor ever!\n[A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in\nsmoke and darkness.\nHECUBA.\nHa! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the\ntowers that fall!\nLEADER.\nAll is gone!\nHECUBA.\nWrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that\nsweepeth all,\nLEADER.\nAnd passeth on!\n[The Greek trumpet sounds.\nHECUBA.\nFarewell!-O spirit grey,\nWhatso is coming,\nFail not from under me.\nWeak limbs, why tremble ye?\nForth where the new long day\nDawneth to slavery!\nCHORUS.\nFarewell from parting lips,\nFarewell!--Come, I and thou,\nWhatso may wait us now,\nForth to the Iong Greek ships\nAnd the sea's foaming.\n[The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go\nout in the darkness.\nNOTES ON THE TROJAN WOMEN\nP. 11, 1. 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.)\nTo 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.\nYet 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.\nP. 11, 1. 11, A steed marvellous.]--See below, on P. 36.\nP. 12, 1. 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.\nP. 12, 1. 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.\nP. 12, 1. 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.\nP. 12, 1. 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.\nP. 13, 1. 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.\nP. 15, 1. 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.\nP. 17, 1. 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.)\nP. 18, 1. 132, Castor.]--Helen's brother: the Eurotas, the river of her home, Sparta.\nP. 18, 1. 135, Fifty seeds.]--Priam had fifty children, nineteen of them children of Hecuba (Il. vi. 451, &c.) .\nP. 22, 1. 205, Pirene.]--The celebrated spring on the hill of Corinth. Drawing water was a typical employment of slaves.\nP. 22, 1. 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 Peneus 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.\nP. 23, 1. 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.)\nP. 24, 1. 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.)\nP. 25, 1. 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.\nP. 26, 1. 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.\nP. 27, i. 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.\nP. 28, 1. 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.\nP. 30, 1. 356, Loxias.]--The name of Apollo as an Oracular God.\nPP. 30-34, 11. 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 Ernyes (Furies) of his mother into madness and exile.\nP. 30, 1. 370, This their king so wise.]--Agamemnon made the war for the sake of his brother Menelaus, and slew his daughter, lphigenia, as a sacrifice at Aulis, to enable the ships to sail for Troy.\nP. 31, 11. 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.\nP. 32, 1. 423, A wise queen.]--Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus.\nP. 33, 1. 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. (Knp-uxes as though from Knp the death-spirit, \"the one thing abhorred of all mortal men.\")\nP. 33, 1. 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 Kunossema, 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 Bell-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.\nP. 34, 1. 456, The wind comes quick.]--i.e. The storm of the Prologue. Three Powers : the three Erinyes.\nP. 36, 1. 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.\"\nWhat 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.\nIt 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 (I) 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.)\nIt 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.\nP. 37, 1. 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!\nP. 38, 1. 554, To Artemis.]--Maidens at the shrine of Artemis are a fixed datum in the tradition. (Cf. Hec. 935 ff.)\nP. 39 ff., 1. 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.\nP. 41, 1. 604, Even as the sound of a song.]--I have filled in some words which seem to be missing in the Greek here.\nPP. 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.\nIt 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.\nObserve, 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.\nP. 51, 1. 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, I. 732.)\nThe argument of the rather difficult lyric is:\n\"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!\n(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!\"\nP. 52, 1. 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.\nPp. 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!\"\nBoth 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.\nThis 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.\nThe 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.\nP. 54, 1. 884, Thou deep base of the world.]--These lines, as a piece of religious speculation, were very famous in antiquity. And dramatically then, 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.)\nBehind this Olympian system, however, there is a possibility of some real Providence or impersonal Governance of the world, to which here, for a moment, Hecuba makes a passionate approach. If there is any explanation, any justice, even in the form of mere punishment of the wicked, she will be content and give worship! But it seems that there is not. Then at last there remains--what most but not all modern freethinkers would probably have begun to doubt at the very beginning--the world of the departed, the spirits of the dead, who are true, and in their dim way love her still (P. 71 \"Thy father far away shall comfort thee,\" and the last scene of the play).\nThis last religion, faint and shattered by doubt as it is, represents a return to the most primitive \"Pelasgian \" beliefs, a worship of the Dead which existed long before the Olympian system, and has long outlived it.\nP. 57, 1. 922, The fire-brand's image.]--Hecuba, just before Paris' birth, dreamed that she gave birth to a fire-brand. The prophets therefore advised that the babe should be killed; but Priam disobeyed them.\nP. 57, 1. 924, Three Crowns of Life.]--On the judgment of Paris see Miss Harrison, Prolegomena, pp. 292 ff. Late writers degrade the story into a beauty contest between three thoroughly personal goddesses--and a contest complicated by bribery. But originally the Judgment is rather a Choice between three possible lives, like the Choice of Heracles between Work and Idleness. The elements of the choice vary in different versions: but in general Hera is royalty; Athena is prowess in war or personal merit; Aphrodite, of course, is love. And the goddesses are not really to be distinguished from the gifts they bring. They are what they give, and nothing more. Cf. the wonderful lyric Androm. 274 ff., where they come to \"a young man walking to and fro alone, in an empty hut in the firelight.\"\nThere is an extraordinary effect in Helen herself being one of the Crowns of Life--a fair equivalent for the throne of the world.\nP. 57, 1. 940 ff., Alexander . . . Paris.]--Two plays on words in the Greek.\nP. 58, 1. 956, The old Gate-Warden.]--He and the Watchers are, of course, safely dead. But on the general lines of the tradition it may well be that Helen is speaking the truth. She loved both Menelaus and Paris; and, according to some versions, hated Deiphobus, the Trojan prince who seized her after Paris' death. There is a reference to Deiphobus in the MSS. of the play here, but I follow Wilamowitz in thinking it spurious.\nPp. 63 ff., Chorus.]--On the Trojan Zeus see above, on p. 11. Mount Ida caught the rays of the rising sun in some special manner and distributed them to the rest of the world; and in this gleam of heavenly fire the God had his dwelling, which is now the brighter for the flames of his City going up like incense!\nNothing definite is known of the Golden Images and the Moon-Feasts.\nP. 64, 1. 1088, Towers of the Giants.]--The prehistoric castles of Tiryns and Mycenae.\nP. 65, 1. 1111, May Helen be there.]--(Cf. above.) Pitane was one of the five divisions of Sparta. Athena had a \"Bronzen House\" on the acropolis of Sparta. Simois, of course, the river of Troy.\nP. 71, 1. 1232, I make thee whole.]--Here as elsewhere Hecuba fluctuates between fidelity to the oldest and most instinctive religion, and a rejection of all Gods.\nP. 72, 1. 1240, Lo, I have seen the open hand of God.]--The text is, perhaps, imperfect here; but Professor Wilamowitz agrees with me that Hecuba has seen something like a vision. The meaning of this speech is of the utmost importance. It expresses the inmost theme of the whole play, a search for an answer to the injustice of suffering in the very splendour and beauty of suffering. Of course it must be suffering of a particular kind, or, what comes to the same thing, suffering borne in a particular way; but in that case the answer seems to me to hold. One does not really think the world evil because there are martyrs or heroes in it. For them the elements of beauty which exist in any great trial of the spirit become so great as to overpower the evil that created them--to turn it from shame and misery into tragedy. Of course to most sufferers, to children and animals and weak people, or those without inspiration, the doctrine brings no help. It is a thing invented by a poet for himself.\nP. 75, 1. 1288, Thou of the Ages.]--The Phrygian All-Father, identified with Zeus, son of Kronos. (Cf. on p. 11.)\nP. 76, 1. 1304, Now hast thou found thy prayer.]The Gods have deserted her, but she has still the dead. (Cf. above, on P- 71.)\nP. 79, I. 1332, Forth to the dark Greek ships.]--Curiously like another magnificent ending of a great poem, that of the Chanson de Roland, where Charlemagne is called forth on a fresh quest:\n\"Deus,\" dist li Reis, \"si penuse est ma vie!\nPluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret. . . .","title":"The Trojan Women of Euripides","type":"page"}