SCENE IV

_Chorus of Trojan Women._

Is it true, or does an idle story Make the timid dream that after death, 380 When the loved one shuts the wearied eyelids, When the last day's sun has come and gone, And the funeral urn has hid the ashes, He shall still live on among the shades? Does it not avail to bear the dear one 385 To the grave? Must misery still endure Longer life beyond? Does not all perish When the fleeting spirit fades in air Cloudlike? When the dreaded fire is lighted 'Neath the body, does no part remain? 390 Whatsoe'er the rising sun or setting Sees; whatever ebbing tide or flood Of the ocean with blue waters washes, Time with Pegasean flight destroys. Like the sweep of whirling constellations, 395 Like the circling of their king the sun, Haste the ages. As obliquely turning Hecate speeds, so all must seek their fate; He who touches once the gloomy water Sacred to the god, exists no more. 400 As the sordid smoke from smoldering embers Swiftly dies, or as a heavy cloud, That the north wind scatters, ends its being, So the soul that rules us slips away; After death is nothing; death is nothing 405 But the last mete of a swift-run race, Which to eager souls gives hope, to fearful Sets a limit to their fears. Believe Eager time and the abyss engulf us; Death is fatal to the flesh, nor spares 410 Spirit even; Tænaris, the kingdom Of the gloomy monarch, and the door Where sits Cerberus and guards the portal, Are but empty rumors, senseless names, Fables vain, that trouble anxious sleep. 415 Ask you whither go we after death? Where they lie who never have been born.