Part 14

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 beneath? Shall I be stationed or to watch the door, Or tend the children of a haughty lord, Erst placed at Troy in rank supreme?

CHOR. Alas!

HEC. With what loud plaints dost thou revive thy woes!

CHOR. I never more through Ida’s loom shall dart The shuttle, nor behold a blooming race Of children, in those lighter tasks employed Which suit the young and beauteous, to the couch Of some illustrious Greek conveyed, the joys Which night and fortune yields are lost to me; Or filled with water, from Pirene’s spring Shall I be doomed to bear the ponderous urn.

HEC. O could we reach the famed and happy realm Of Theseus, distant from Eurotas’ tide, And curst Therapne’s gates, where I should meet Perfidious Helen, and remain a slave To Menelaus, who demolished Troy.

CHOR. By fame’s loud voice I am informed, the vale Of Peneus, at Olympus base, abounds With wealth and plenteous fruitage.

HEC. This I make My second option, next the blest domain Of Theseus.

CHOR. I am told that Vulcan’s realm Of Ætna, opposite Phœnicia’s coast The mother of Sicilian hills, is famed For palms obtained by valour. Through the realm Adjacent, bordering on th’ Ionian deep, Crathis the bright, for auburn hair renowned, The tribute of its holy current pours, And scatters blessings o’er a martial land. But lo, with hasty step a herald comes Bearing some message from the Grecian host! What is his errand? for we now are slaves To yon proud rulers of the Doric realm.

TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS.

TAL. O Hecuba, full oft, you know, to Troy I, as their herald, by the Grecian host Have been despatched; you cannot be a stranger To me, Talthybius, who to you, and all, One message bring.

HEC. This, this, my dearest friends, Is what I long have feared.

TAL. The lots are cast Already, if your terrors thence arose.

HEC. Alas, to what Thessalian city saidst thou, Or to the Phthian, or the Theban realm Shall we be carried?

TAL. To a separate lord Hath each of you distinctly been assigned.

HEC. To whom, alas, to whom am I allotted? What Phrygian dames do happier fortunes wait?

TAL. I know; but be distinct in your inquiries, Nor ask at once a multitude of questions.

HEC. Say who by lot hath gained my wretched daughter Cassandra?

TAL. Her the royal Agamemnon His chosen prize hath taken.

HEC. As a slave To tend his Spartan wife? ah, me!

TAL. No slave, But concubine.

HEC. What, Phœbus’ votive maid, To whom the god with golden tresses gave This privilege, that she should pass her life In celibacy?

TAL. With the shafts of love Hath the prophetic nymph transpierced his breast.

HEC. My daughter, cast the sacred keys away, And rend the garlands thou with pride didst wear.

TAL. Is it not great for captives to ascend The regal couch?

HEC. But where is she whom late Ye took away, and whither have ye borne That daughter?

TAL. Speak you of Polyxena, Or for whom else would you inquire?

HEC. On whom Hath chance bestowed her?

TAL. At Achilles’ tomb It is decreed that she shall minister.

HEC. Wretch that I am! for his sepulchral rites Have I then borne a priestess? but what law Is this, what Grecian usage, O my friend?

TAL. Esteem your daughter happy; for with her All now is well.

HEC. What saidst thou? doth she live?

TAL. ’Tis her peculiar fate to be released From all affliction.

HEC. But, alas! what fortune Attends the warlike Hector’s captive wife, How fares it with the lost Andromache?

TAL. Her to Achilles’ son hath from the band Of captives chosen.

HEC. As to me who need For a third foot, the staff which in these hands I hold, whose head is whitened o’er with age, To whom am I a slave?

TAL. By lot the king Of Ithaca Ulysses hath obtained you.

HEC. Alas! alas! let your shorn temples feel The frequent blow; rend your discoloured cheeks. Ah me! I am allotted for a slave To a detestable and treacherous man, Sworn foe of justice, to that lawless viper, With double tongue confounding all, ’twixt friends Exciting bitter hate. Ye Trojan dames, O shed the sympathizing tear: I sink Beneath the pressure of relentless fate.

CHOR. Thy doom, O queen, thou know’st: but to what chief, Hellenian or Achaian, I belong Inform me.

TAL. Peace! Conduct Cassandra hither With speed, ye guards, into our general’s hands When I his captive have delivered up, That we the rest may portion out. Why gleams That blazing torch within? would Ilion’s dames Their chambers fire? what mean they? doomed to leave This land, and to be borne to Argive shores, Are they resolved to perish in the flames? The soul, inspired with an unbounded love Of freedom, ill sustains such woes. Burst open The doors, lest, to their honour and the shame Of Greece, on me the censure fall.

HEC. They kindle No conflagration, but, with frantic step, My daughter, lo! Cassandra rushes hither.

CASSANDRA, TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS.

CAS. Avaunt! the sacred flame I bring With reverential awe profound, And wave the kindled torch around, O Hymen, thou benignant king. The bridegroom comes with jocund pride, I too am styled a happy bride, My name through Argos’ streets shall ring, O Hymen, thou benignant king! While thou attend’st my father’s bier, O Hecuba, with many a tear, While Ilion’s ramparts overthrown From thee demand th’ incessant groan, Ere the bright sun withhold his ray, E’en in the glaring front of day, I bid the nuptial incense blaze To thee, O Hymen, thee whose power Invoking at her bridal hour The bashful virgin comes. Yon maze Encircling, ’mid the choral dance, As ancient usage bids, advance, And in thy hand a flaming pine, O mother, brandish. God of wine, Thy shouting votaries hither bring, As if in Ilion thou hadst found Old Priam still a happy king. Range that holy group around, O Phœbus, in thy laureate mead, Thy temple, shall the victim bleed. Let Hymen, Hymen, Hymen, sound. My mother, for the dance prepare, Vault nimbly, and our revels share. At Hymen’s shrine, my friends, prolong Your vows, awake th’ ecstatic song; In honour of my bridal day, Chant, Phrygian nymphs, the choral lay, And celebrate the chief whom fate Ordains to be Cassandra’s mate.

CHOR. Wilt thou not stop the princess, lest she rush With frantic step amid the Grecian host?

HEC. O Vulcan, wont to light the bridal torch, Now dost thou brandish an accursed flame; My soul foresaw not this. Alas! my daughter, I little thought, that ’midst the din of arms, Or while we crouch beneath the Argive spear, Thou couldst have celebrated such espousals. Give me the torch, for while with frantic speed Thou rushest on, it trembles in thy hand. Nor yet have thy afflictions, O my daughter, Brought back thy wandering reason, thou remain’st Disordered as before. Ye Trojan dames, Remove yon blazing pines, and in the stead Of these her bridal songs let tears express The anguish of your souls.

CAS. O mother, place A laureate wreath on my victorious brow, Exulting lead me to the monarch’s bed. And if for thee too slowly I advance, Drag me along by force; for I am now No more the spouse of Phœbus; but that king Of Greece, famed Agamemnon, shall in me Take to his arms a bride more inauspicious Than even Helen’s self: him will I smite, And lay his palace waste, in great revenge For my slain sire and brothers. But I cease These menaces, and speak not of the axe Which shall smite me and others, or the conflict My wedlock shall produce, whence by the hands Of her own son a mother shall be slain, And th’ overthrow of Atreus’ guilty house. This city will I prove to have been happier Than the victorious Greeks (for though the gods Inspire, I curb the transports of my soul), Who for one single woman, to regain The beauteous Helen only, wasted lives Unnumbered. Their wise leader, in the cause Of those he hated, slew whom most he loved; He to his brother yielded up his daughter, Joy of his house, for that vile woman’s sake, Who with her own consent, and not by force, Was borne away. But at Scamander’s banks When they arrived, they died, though not by exile Torn from their country, or their native towers: But them who in embattled fields were slain Their children saw not, nor in decent shroud Were they enwrapped by their loved consorts’ hands, But lie deserted on a foreign coast: Their sorrows also who remained at home Are similar; in widowhood forlorn Some die; and others, of their own brave sons Deprived, breed up the children of a stranger; Nor at their slighted tombs is blood poured forth To drench the thirsty ground. Their host deserves Praises like these. ’Tis better not to speak Of what is infamous, nor shall my Muse Record the shameful tale. But, first and greatest Of glories, in their country’s cause expired The Trojans; the remains of those who fell In battle, by their friends borne home, obtained Sepulchral honours in their native soil, That duteous office kindred hands performed: While every Phrygian who escaped the sword Still with his wife and children did reside, Joy to the Greeks unknown. Now hear the fate Of Hector, him whom thou bewail’st, esteemed The bravest of our heroes, by the Greeks Landing on Ilion’s coast the warrior fell; In their own country had the foe remained, His valour ne’er had been displayed: but Paris Wedded the daughter of imperial Jove, In her possessing an illustrious bride. It is the wise man’s duty to avoid Perilous war. After the die is cast, He who undaunted meets the fatal stroke, Adds to his native city fair renown; But the last moments of a coward shame The land which gave him birth. Forbear to weep, My mother, for thy ruined country’s fate; Weep not because thou seest thy daughter borne To Agamemnon’s bed, for by these spousals Our most inveterate foes shall I destroy.

CHOR. How sweetly ’midst the sorrows of thy house Thou smil’st! ere long perchance wilt thou afford A melancholy instance that thy strains Are void of truth.

TAL. Had not Apollo fired E’en to distraction thy perverted soul, Thou on my honoured leader, ere he quit The shores of Ilion, shouldst not unavenged Pour forth these omens. But, alas! the great, And they who in th’ opinion of mankind Are wise, in no respect excel the vulgar. For the dread chieftain of the Grecian host, The son of Atreus, loves with boundless passion This damsel frantic as the Mænades. Myself am poor, yet would not I accept A wife like her. Since thou hast lost thy reason, I to the winds consign thy bitter taunts ’Gainst Argos, with the praises thou bestow’st On Troy. Thou bride of Agamemnon, come, Follow me to the fleet. But when Ulysses Would bear you hence, O Hecuba, obey The summons, you are destined to attend A queen called virtuous by all those who come To Ilion.

CAS. Arrogant, detested slave! All heralds are like thee, the public scorn, Crouching with abject deference to some king Or city. Say’st thou, “To Ulysses’ house My mother shall be borne?” Of what account Were then the oracles Apollo gave Uttered by me his priestess, which declare, “She here shall die?” I spare the shameful tale. He knows not, the unhappy Ithacus, What evils yet await him, in the tears Of me and every captive Phrygian maid, While he exults, and deems our misery gain. Ten more long years elapsed beyond the term Spent in besieging Ilion, he alone Shall reach his country; witness thou who dwell’st ’Midst ocean’s straits tempestuous, dire Charybdis, Ye mountains where on human victims feast The Cyclops, with Ligurian Circe’s isle, Whose wand transforms to swine, the billowy deep, Covered with shipwrecks, the bewitching Lotus, The sacred Oxen of the Sun, whose flesh Destined to utter a tremendous voice The banquet shall embitter: he at length, In a few words his history to comprise, Alive must travel to the shades beneath, And hardly ’scaping from a watery grave In his own house find evils numberless. But why do I recount Ulysses’ toils? Lead on, that I the sooner in the realms Of Pluto, with that bridegroom may consummate My nuptials. Ruthless miscreant as thou art, Thou in the tomb ignobly shalt be plunged At midnight; nor shall the auspicious beams Of day illumine thy funereal rites, O leader of the Grecian host, who deem’st That thou a mighty conquest hast achieved. Near to my lord’s remains, and in that vale, Where down a precipice the torrent foams, My corse shall to the hungry wolves be thrown, The corse of Phœbus’ priestess. O ye wreaths Of him whom best of all the gods I loved, Adieu, ye symbols of my holy office, I leave those feasts the scenes of past delight, Torn from my brows avaunt, for I retain My chastity unsullied still; the winds To thee shall waft them, O prophetic king. Where is your general’s bark, which I am doomed T’ ascend? the rising breezes shall unfurl Your sails this instant; for in me ye bear One of the three Eumenides from Troy. Farewell, my mother, weep not for my fate, O my dear country, my heroic brothers, And aged father, in the realms beneath, Ere long shall ye receive me: but victorious Will I descend among the mighty dead, When I have laid th’ accursed mansions waste Of our destroyers, Atreus’ impious sons.

[_Exeunt_ CASSANDRA _and_ TALTHYBIUS.

CHOR. Attendants of the aged Hecuba, Behold ye not your mistress, how she falls Upon the pavement speechless? Why neglect To prop her sinking frame! Ye slothful nymphs, Raise up this woman, whom a weight of years Bows to the dust.

HEC. Away, and on this spot Allow me, courteous damsels, to remain: No longer welcome as in happier days Are your kind offices; this humble posture, This fall best suits my present lowly state, Best suits what I already have endured And still am doomed to suffer. O ye gods, In you I call upon no firm allies, Yet sure ’tis decent to invoke the gods When we by adverse fortune are opprest. First, therefore, all the blessings I enjoyed Would I recount, hence shall my woes demand The greater pity. Born to regal state, And with a mighty king in wedlock joined, A race of valiant sons did I produce; I speak not of their numbers, but the noblest Among the Phrygian youths, such as no Trojan, Nor Grecian, nor barbarian dame could boast: Them saw I fall beneath the hostile spear, And at their tomb these tresses cut: their sire, The venerable Priam, I bewailed not, From being told of his calamitous fate By others, but these eyes beheld him slain, E’en at the altar of Hercæan Jove, And Ilion taken. I those blooming maids Have also lost, whom with maternal love I nurtured for some noble husband’s bed; They from these arms are torn: nor can I hope Or to be seen by them, or e’er to see My children more. But last of all, to crown My woes, an aged slave, shall I be borne To Greece; and in such tasks will they employ me As are most grievous in the wane of life; Me, who am Hector’s mother, at the door Stationed to keep the keys, or knead the bread, And on the pavement stretch my withered limbs, Which erst reposed upon a regal couch, And in such tattered vestments, as belie My former rank, enwrap my wasted frame. Wretch that I am, who, through one woman’s nuptials, Have borne, and am hereafter doomed to bear, Such dreadful ills. O my unhappy daughter, Cassandra, whom the gods have rendered frantic, With what sad omens hath thy virgin zone Been loosed! and where, Polyxena, art thou, O virgin most unfortunate? but none Of all my numerous progeny, or male Or female, comes to aid their wretched mother. Why, therefore, would ye lift me up? what room Is there for hope? me who with tender foot Paced through the streets of Troy, but now a slave, Drag from the palace to the rushy mat And stony pillow, that where’er I fall There may I die, through many, many tears Exhausted. Of the prosperous and the great Pronounce none happy till the hour of death.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I.

Prepare, O Muse, prepare a song Expressive of the fall of Troy; The sympathetic dirge prolong And banish every note of joy. I with loud voice of Ilion’s fate will speak, Sing how the foe our ramparts stormed Through the machine their treachery formed, The vehicle of many a daring Greek, Who burst like thunder from that wooden steed, With gorgeous trappings graced, in mimic state, Concealing armed bands, which passed the Scæan gate, They whom such semblance could mislead, The unsuspecting crowd, As on Troy’s citadel they stood, Exclaimed; “Henceforth our toils shall cease, Come on, and to Minerva’s fane convey This holy image, pledge of peace.” What veteran paused? what youth but led the way? Enlivening songs breathed round in notes so sweet, That gladly they received the pestilential cheat.

II.

Then did all Phrygia’s race combine Through their devoted gates to bear, Enclosed in the stupendous pine The fraud of Greece, that latent snare, To glut Minerva with Dardanian blood, To pacify th’ immortal maid, They the huge mass with ropes conveyed: Thus the tall bark, into the briny flood Too ponderous to be borne, is rolled along: Till they had lodged it in th’ ill-omened fane Of her to whom we owe our ruined country’s bane. After their toil and festive song, The cloud-wrapped evening spread Her veil o’er each devoted head, Shrill Phrygian voices did resound, And Libya’s flutes accompanied the choir, While nymphs high vaulting from the ground, Mixed their applauses with the chorded lyre, And from each hearth the flames with radiance bright, While heedless warriors slept, dispelled the shades of night.

III.

Then o’er the genial board, to her who reigns In woodland heights, Diana, child of Jove, I waked the choral strains. But soon there flew a dismal sound Pergamus’ wide streets around: The shrieking infant fondly strove To grasp the border of a mother’s vest, And with uplifted hands its little fears expressed: Mars from his ambush by Minerva’s aid Conspicuous issued and the fray began, Thick gore adown our altars ran, And many a slaughtered youth was laid A headless trunk on the disfigured bed, That Greece might shine with laureate wreaths arrayed, By Troy while fruitless tears are shed.

ANDROMACHE, HECUBA, CHORUS.

CHOR. Seest thou, Andromache, O queen, this way Advancing, wafted in a foreign car? Eager to cling to the maternal breast Close follows her beloved Astyanax, The son of Hector.

HEC. Whither art thou borne, O wretched woman, on a chariot placed ’Midst Hector’s brazen armour, and those spoils From captive Phrygian chiefs in combat torn, With which Achilles’ son from Ilion’s siege Triumphant, will the Phthian temples grace?

AND. Our Grecian masters drag me hence.

HEC. Alas!

AND. Why with your groans my anguish strive t’ assuage?

HEC. Oh!

AND. I by griefs am compassed——

HEC. Mighty Jove!

AND. And dread vicissitudes of fate.

HEC. My children.

AND. We once were blest.

HEC. Now are those prosperous days No more; and Ilion is no more.

AND. Most wretched!

HEC. My noble sons.

AND. Alas!

HEC. Alas my——

AND. Woes.

HEC. O piteous fortune——

AND. Of the city——

HEC. Wrapt In smoke.

AND. Return, my husband, O return.

HEC. In clamorous accents thou invok’st my son, Whom Pluto’s realms detain, unhappy woman.

AND. Thy consort’s tutelary power.

HEC. And thou, Whose courage long withstood the Grecian host, Thou aged father of our numerous race, Lead me, O Priam, to the shades beneath.

AND. Presumptuous are such wishes.

HEC. We endure These grievous woes.

CHOR. While ruin overwhelms Our city, for on sorrows have been heaped Fresh sorrows, through the will of angry Heaven, Since in an evil hour thy son was snatched From Pluto, who, determined to avenge Those execrable nuptials, with the ground Hath levelled Pergamus’ beleaguered towers. Near Pallas’ shrine the corses of the slain Weltering in gore to vultures lie exposed, And Ilion droops beneath the servile yoke. Thee, O my wretched country, I with tears Forsake: e’en now thou view’st the piteous end Of all thy woes, and my loved native house.

HEC. My children! O my desolated city! Your mother is bereft of every joy.

CHOR. What shrieks, what plaints resound! what floods of tears Stream in our houses! but the dead forget Their sorrows, and for ever cease to weep.

HEC. To those who suffer, what a sweet relief Do tears afford! the sympathetic Muse Inspires their plaints.

AND. O mother of that chief, Whose forceful javelin thinned the ranks of Greece, Illustrious Hector, seest thou this?

HEC. I see The gods delight in raising up the low, And ruining the great.

AND. Hence with my son, A captive am I hurried; noble birth Subject to these vicissitudes now sinks Into degrading slavery.

HEC. Uncontrolled The power of fate: Cassandra from these arms But now with brutal violence was torn!

AND. A second Ajax to thy daughter seems To have appeared. Yet hast thou other griefs.

HEC. All bounds, all numbers they exceed; with ills Fresh ills as for pre-eminence contend.

AND. Polyxena, thy daughter, at the tomb Of Peleus’ son hath breathed her last, a gift To the deceased.