Hecuba and other plays

1. _Sheridan’s Plays._ 2. _Plays from Molière._ By English Dramatists. 3. _Marlowe’s Faustus_ and _Goethe’s Faust_. 4. _Chronicle of the Cid._ 5. _Rabelais’ Gargantua_ and the _...

HEC. Doth not your guilt appear From your own counsels? Though your tongue avows The generous treatment you from me received No benefit on me do you confer, But strive to harm m...

ATT. You speak of one yet living, but bewail not This the deceased: survey the naked corse Of him whose death to you will seem most strange And most unlocked for.

POLYM. Rouse, O ye Thracians, armed with ponderous spears, Arrayed in mail, for generous steeds renowned, A hardy race, whom Mars himself inspires. To you, O Grecian troops, and...

AMP. Jove will assert the cause of his own son. But as for me, O Hercules, my care Shall be to prove the folly of this tyrant: For thy illustrious name I will not suffer To be r...

HER. Will ye not cast from your dishevelled hair These wreaths of Pluto? will ye not look up To yon bright sun, and ope your eyes to view Scenes far more pleasing than the loath...

MES. To purify the house were victims brought Before Jove’s altar, after Hercules Had slain and cast the monarch of this land Forth from these doors. Beside the victor stood His...

THE. This mischief Springs from no god except the wife of Jove. Well dost thou judge, in saying that ’tis easier To give thee wholesome counsel, than endure Such agonies. But no...

COP. I retire: For weak in combat is a single arm. But I again shall hither come, and bring A host of Argives armed with brazen spears: Unnumbered warriors wait for my return. T...

ALC. Whence with your voice resounds this echoing dome, O Iolaus, is another herald From Argos come, who forcibly assails you? My strength indeed is small, yet be assured Of thi...

EUR. Destroy me if thou wilt; to thee I sue not: But on this city, since it spared my life Through pious reverence, and forbore to slay me, Will I bestow an ancient oracle Of Ph...

To dazzle fierce Pelides’ sight, Before him wave thy golden shield Obliquely raised, that meteor of the field, Vault from thy chariot with unrivalled might, And brandish with ea...

CHA. We are most wretched, And to our wretchedness have joined disgrace, A twofold evil. For, to die with glory, If glory must be purchased at the expense Of life, is very bitte...

HEC. To whom shall wretched I, and in what land Become a slave, decrepit like the drone Through age, mere semblance of a pallid corse, Or flitting spectre from the realms beneat...

HEC. Far different, O my daughter, is the state Of them who live, from them who breathe no more: For the deceased are nothing: but fair hope, While life remains, can never be ex...

CHOR. As that illustrious stem Whence thou deriv’st thy birth, and as thy rank Demand, on thy adulterous wife inflict Just punishment, and purge this foul reproach, This instanc...

SIL. That will I do, Regardless of my lord, because I wish To drain one goblet of this wine, and give The flocks of all the Cyclops in its stead. I’d from Leucadè, when complete...

ULY. When to plenteous food you add An equal share of liquor, and well drench The throat beyond what thirst demands, you sink Into sweet sleep: but if you leave behind Aught of...

What Phrygian artist on the top of Ide, Or vagrant of a Grecian line, Felled that inauspicious pine, To frame the bark which Paris o’er the tide Dared with barbaric oars to guid...

MES. Borne to the skies your consort from our sight Hath vanished, in the heavens is she concealed, Leaving the cave in which we guarded her, When she these words had uttered: “...

MEN. I cannot at your knees Fall prostrate, or with tears these eyelids stain: For I should cover all the great exploits Which I achieved at Ilion with disgrace, If I became a d...

Soon as the mother’s toils were o’er, When she had finished her career, And sought the ravished maid no more, To caves where drifted snows appear, By Ida’s nymphs frequented, di...

O Thebes, thou pride of Asia, from whose gate I came resplendent with a plenteous dower, To Priam’s regal house, the fruitful wife Of Hector: his Andromache was erst An envied n...

AND. Ah me! a bitter and unwelcome choice Of life on terms like these hast thou proposed; Wretch that I am! for whether I decline Or make such option, I am wretched still. O tho...

O veteran, sprung from Æacus, thy spear Chilled the Lapithæ with fear, And from their hills the Centaurs drove. When glory called, and prosperous gales Swelled the Argo’s daring...

PEL. I have no city. Thee, O my sceptre, to the ground I cast, And from yon dreary caverns of the main, Daughter of Nereus, me wilt thou behold Utterly ruined, grovelling in the...