by Euripides
Waiting for sons that ne’er should turn again,
Nor know their graves, nor pour drink-offerings,
To still the unslakèd dust. These be the things
The conquering Greek hath won!
But we — what pride,
What praise of men were sweeter? — fighting died
To save our people. And when war was red
Around us, friends upbore the gentle dead
Home, and dear women’s heads about them wound
White shrouds, and here they sleep in the old ground
Belovèd. And the rest long days fought on,
Dwelling with wives and children, not alone
And joyless, like these Greeks.
And Hector’s woe,
What is it? He is gone, and all men know
His glory, and how true a heart he bore.
It is the gift the Greek hath brought! Of yore
Men saw him not, nor knew him. Yea, and even
Paris hath loved withal a child of heaven:
Else had his love but been as others are.
Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!
Yet if war come, there is a crown in death
For her that striveth well and perisheth
Unstained: to die in evil were the stain!
Therefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain,
Nor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foe
And mine by this my wooing is brought low.
TALTHYBIUS (at last breaking through the spell that has held him).
I swear, had not Apollo made thee mad,
Not lightly hadst thou flung this shower of bad
Bodings, to speed my General o’er the seas!
‘Fore God, the wisdoms and the greatnesses
Of seeming, are they hollow all, as things
Of naught? This son of Atreus, of all kings
Most mighty, hath so bowed him to the love
Of this mad maid, and chooseth her above
All women! By the Gods, rude though I be,
I would not touch her hand!
Look thou; I see
Thy lips are blind, and whatso words they speak,
Praises of Troy or shamings of the Greek,
I cast to the four winds! Walk at my side
In peace!… And heaven content him of his bride!
[He moves as though to go, but turns to HECUBA, and speaks more
gently.
And thou shalt follow to Odysseus’ host
When the word comes. ’Tis a wise queen thou
go’st
To serve, and gentle: so the Ithacans say.
CASSANDRA (seeing for the first time the Herald and all the scene).
How fierce a slave!… O Heralds, Heralds!
Yea,
Voices of Death; and mists are over them
Of dead men’s anguish, like a diadem,
These weak abhorred things that serve the hate
Of kings and peoples!…
To Odysseus’ gate
My mother goeth, say’st thou? Is God’s word
As naught, to me in silence ministered,
That in this place she dies?… (To herself) No
more; no more!
Why should I speak the shame of them, before
They come?… Little he knows, that hard-beset
Spirit, what deeps of woe await him yet;
Till all these tears of ours and harrowings
Of Troy, by his, shall be as golden things.
Ten years behind ten years athwart his way
Waiting: and home, lost and unfriended….
Nay:
Why should Odysseus’ labours vex my breath?
On; hasten; guide me to the house of Death,
To lie beside my bridegroom!…
Thou Greek King,
Who deem’st thy fortune now so high a thing,
Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see,
In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee:
And with thee, with thee … there, where yawneth
plain
A rift of the hills, raging with winter rain,
Dead … and out-cast … and naked…. It is I
Beside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry,
And ravin on God’s chosen!
[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the wreaths.
O, ye wreaths!
Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes
About me, shapes of joyance mystical,
Begone! I have forgot the festival,
Forgot the joy. Begone! I tear ye, so,
From off me!… Out on the swift winds they go.
With flesh still clean I give them back to thee,
Still white, O God, O light that leadest me!
[Turning upon the Herald.
Where lies the galley? Whither shall I tread?
See that your watch be set, your sail be spread
The wind comes quick! Three Powers — mark me,
thou! —
There be in Hell, and one walks with thee now!
Mother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweet
City, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great
Sire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead,
And I am with you, yea, with crowned head
I come, and shining from the fires that feed
On these that slay us now, and all their seed!
[She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers Hecuba, after waiting for an instant motionless, falls to the ground.
LEADER OF CHORUS.
The Queen, ye Watchers! See, she falls, she falls,
Rigid without a word! O sorry thralls,
Too late! And will ye leave her downstricken,
A woman, and so old? Raise her again!
[Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses their aid and speaks without rising.
HECUBA.
Let lie … the love we seek not is no love….
This ruined body! Is the fall thereof
Too deep for all that now is over me
Of anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be?
Ye Gods…. Alas! Why call on things so weak
For aid? Yet there is something that doth seek,
Crying, for God, when one of us hath woe.
O, I will think of things gone long ago
And weave them to a song, like one more tear
In the heart of misery…. All kings we were;
And I must wed a king. And sons I brought
My lord King, many sons … nay, that were naught;
But high strong princes, of all Troy the best.
Hellas nor Troäs nor the garnered East
Held such a mother! And all these things beneath
The Argive spear I saw cast down in death,
And shore these tresses at the dead men’s feet.
Yea, and the gardener of my garden great,
It was not any noise of him nor tale
I wept for; these eyes saw him, when the pale
Was broke, and there at the altar Priam fell
Murdered, and round him all his citadel
Sacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold,
Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold,
’Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone;
And no hope left, that I shall look upon
Their faces any more, nor they on mine.
And now my feet tread on the utmost line:
An old, old slave-woman, I pass below
Mine enemies’ gates; and whatso task they know
For this age basest, shall be mine; the door,
Bowing, to shut and open…. I that bore
Hector!… and meal to grind, and this racked head
Bend to the stones after a royal bed;
Tom rags about me, aye, and under them
Tom flesh; ‘twill make a woman sick for shame!
Woe’s me; and all that one man’s arms might hold
And roll for ever!… O my child, whose white
Soul laughed amid the laughter of God’s light,
Cassandra, what hands and how strange a day
Have loosed thy zone! And thou, Polyxena,
Where art thou? And my sons? Not any seed
Of man nor woman now shall help my need.
Why raise me any more? What hope have I
To hold me? Take this slave that once trod high
In Ilion; cast her on her bed of clay
Rock-pillowed, to lie down, and pass away
Wasted with tears. And whatso man they call
Happy, believe not ere the last day fall!
* * * * *
CHORUS. [Strophe.
O Muse, be near me now, and make
A strange song for Ilion’s sake,
Till a tone of tears be about mine ears
And out of my lips a music break
For Troy, Troy, and the end of the years:
When the wheels of the Greek above me pressed,
And the mighty horse-hoofs beat my breast;
And all around were the Argive spears
A towering Steed of golden rein —
O gold without, dark steel within! —
Ramped in our gates; and all the plain
Lay silent where the Greeks had been.
And a cry broke from all the folk
Gathered above on Ilion’s rock:
“Up, up, O fear is over now!
To Pallas, who hath saved us living,
To Pallas bear this victory-vow!”
Then rose the old man from his room,
The merry damsel left her loom,
And each bound death about his brow
With minstrelsy and high thanksgiving!
[Antistrophe.
O, swift were all in Troy that day,
And girt them to the portal-way,
Marvelling at that mountain Thing
Smooth-carven, where the Argives lay,
And wrath, and Ilion’s vanquishing:
Meet gift for her that spareth not,
Heaven’s yokeless Rider. Up they brought
Through the steep gates her offering:
Like some dark ship that climbs the shore
On straining cables, up, where stood
Her marble throne, her hallowed floor,
Who lusted for her people’s blood.
A very weariness of joy
Fell with the evening over Troy:
And lutes of Afric mingled there
With Phrygian songs: and many a maiden,
With white feet glancing light as air,
Made happy music through the gloom:
And fires on many an inward room
All night broad-flashing, flung their glare
On laughing eyes and slumber-laden.
A MAIDEN.
I was among the dancers there
To Artemis, and glorying sang
Her of the Hills, the Maid most fair,
Daughter of Zeus: and, lo, there rang
A shout out of the dark, and fell
Deathlike from street to street, and made
A silence in the citadel:
And a child cried, as if afraid,
And hid him in his mother’s veil.
Then stalked the Slayer from his den,
The hand of Pallas served her well!
O blood, blood of Troy was deep
About the streets and altars then:
And in the wedded rooms of sleep,
Lo, the desolate dark alone,
And headless things, men stumbled on.
And forth, lo, the women go,
The crown of War, the crown of Woe,
To bear the children of the foe
And weep, weep, for Ilion!
* * * * *
[As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching from the town, laden with spoils. On it sits a mourning Woman with a child in her arms.
LEADER.
Lo, yonder on the heapèd crest
Of a Greek wain, Andromachê,
As one that o’er an unknown sea
Tosseth; and on her wave-borne breast
Her loved one clingeth, Hector’s child,
Astyanax…. O most forlorn
Of women, whither go’st thou, borne
‘Mid Hector’s bronzen arms, and piled
Spoils of the dead, and pageantry
Of them that hunted Ilion down?
Aye, richly thy new lord shall crown
The mountain shrines of Thessaly!
ANDROMACHE
[Strophe I.
Forth to the Greek I go,
Driven as a beast is driven.
HEC. Woe, woe!
AND. Nay, mine is woe:
Woe to none other given,
And the song and the crown therefor!
HEC. O Zeus!
AND. He hates thee sore!
HEC. Children!
AND. No more, no more
To aid thee: their strife is striven!
HECUBA.
[Antistrophe I.
Troy, Troy is gone!
AND. Yea, and her treasure parted.
HEC. Gone, gone, mine own
Children, the noble-hearted!
AND. Sing sorrow….
HEC. For me, for me!
AND. Sing for the Great City,
That falleth, falleth to be
A shadow, a fire departed.
ANDROMACHE.
[Strophe 2.
Come to me, O my lover!
HEC. The dark shroudeth him over,
My flesh, woman, not thine, not thine!
AND. Make of thine arms my cover!
HECUBA.
[Antistrophe 2.
O thou whose wound was deepest,
Thou that my children keepest,
Priam, Priam, O age-worn King,
Gather me where thou sleepest.
ANDROMACHE (her hands upon her heart).
[Strophe 3.
O here is the deep of desire,
HEC. (How? And is this not woe?)
AND. For a city burned with fire;
HEC. (It beateth, blow on blow.)
AND. God’s wrath for Paris, thy son, that he died not long ago:
Who sold for his evil love
Troy and the towers thereof:
Therefore the dead men lie
Naked, beneath the eye
Of Pallas, and vultures croak
And flap for joy:
So Love hath laid his yoke
On the neck of Troy!
HECUBA.
[Antistrophe 3.
O mine own land, my home,
AND. (I weep for thee, left forlorn,)
HEC. See’st thou what end is come?
AND. (And the house where my babes were born.)
HEC. A desolate Mother we leave, O children, a City of scorn:
Even as the sound of a song
Left by the way, but long
Remembered, a tune of tears
Falling where no man hears,
In the old house, as rain,
For things loved of yore:
But the dead hath lost his pain
And weeps no more.
LEADER.
How sweet are tears to them in bitter stress,
And sorrow, and all the songs of heaviness.
ANDROMACHE.
Mother of him of old, whose mighty spear Smote Greeks like chaff, see’st thou what things are here?
HECUBA.
I see God’s hand, that buildeth a great crown
For littleness, and hath cast the mighty down.
ANDROMACHE.
I and my babe are driven among the droves
Of plundered cattle. O, when fortune moves
So swift, the high heart like a slave beats low.
HECUBA.
’Tis fearful to be helpless. Men but now
Hav
e taken Cassandra, and I strove in vain.
ANDROMACHE.
Ah, woe is me; hath Ajax come again?
But other evil yet is at thy gate.
HECUBA.
Nay, Daughter, beyond number, beyond weight
My evils are! Doom raceth against doom.
ANDROMACHE.
Polyxena across Achilles’ tomb
Lies slain, a gift flung to the dreamless dead.
HECUBA.
My sorrow!… ’Tis but what Talthybius said:
So plain a riddle, and I read it not.
ANDROMACHE.
I saw her lie, and stayed this chariot;
And raiment wrapt on her dead limbs, and beat
My breast for her.
HECUBA (to herself).
O the foul sin of it!
The wickedness! My child. My child! Again
I cry to thee. How cruelly art thou slain!
ANDROMACHE.
She hath died her death, and howso dark it be,
Her death is sweeter than my misery.
HECUBA.
Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup
Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope.
ANDROMACHE.
O Mother, having ears, hear thou this word
Fear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirred
With joy. To die is only not to be;
And better to be dead than grievously
Living. They have no pain, they ponder not
Their own wrong. But the living that is brought
From joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam,
As in a desert, lost, from its old home.
Thy daughter lieth now as one unborn,
Dead, and naught knowing of the lust and scorn
That slew her. And I … long since I drew my
bow
Straight at the heart of good fame; and I know
My shaft hit; and for that am I the more
Fallen from peace. All that men praise us for,
I loved for Hector’s sake, and sought to win.
I knew that alway, be there hurt therein
Or utter innocence, to roam abroad
Hath ill report for women; so I trod
Down the desire thereof, and walked my way
In mine own garden. And light words and gay
Parley of women never passed my door.
The thoughts of mine own heart … I craved no more….
Spoke with me, and I was happy. Constantly
I brought fair silence and a tranquil eye
For Hector’s greeting, and watched well the way
Of living, where to guide and where obey.
And, lo! some rumour of this peace, being gone
Forth to the Greek, hath cursed me. Achilles’ son,
So soon as I was taken, for his thrall
Chose me. I shall do service in the hall
Of them that slew…. How? Shall I thrust aside
Hector’s beloved face, and open wide
My heart to this new lord? Oh, I should stand
A traitor to the dead! And if my hand
And flesh shrink from him … lo, wrath and despite