id="id00071">POSEIDON.

Swift is thy spirit's path, and strange withal,
And hot thy love and hate, where'er they fall.

PALLAS.

A deadly wrong they did me, yea within
Mine holy place: thou knowest?

POSEIDON.

     I know the sin
Of Ajax[8], when he cast Cassandra down….

PALLAS.

And no man rose and smote him; not a frown
Nor word from all the Greeks!

POSEIDON.

     And 'twas thine hand
That gave them Troy!

PALLAS.

     Therefore with thee I stand
To smite them.

POSEIDON.

     All thou cravest, even now
Is ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?

PALLAS.

An homecoming that striveth ever more
And cometh to no home.

POSEIDON.

     Here on the shore
Wouldst hold them or amid mine own salt foam?

PALLAS.

When the last ship hath bared her sail for home!
  Zeus shall send rain, long rain and flaw of driven
Hail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven;
To me his levin-light he promiseth
O'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death:
Do thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steep
With war of waves and yawning of the deep,
Till dead men choke Euboea's curling bay.
So Greece shall dread even in an after day
My house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!

POSEIDON.

I give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands
Shall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that cross
The Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos,
Scyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-driven
Caphêreus with the bones of drownèd men
Shall glut him.—Go thy ways, and bid the Sire
Yield to thine hand the arrows of his fire.
Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind
Her cable coil for home! [Exit PALLAS.

      How are ye blind,
Ye treaders down of cities, ye that cast
Temples to desolation, and lay waste
Tombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie
The ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!

[Exit POSEIDON.

* * * * *

The day slowly dawns: HECUBA wakes.

HECUBA.

Up from the earth, O weary head!
   This is not Troy, about, above—
   Not Troy, nor we the lords thereof.
Thou breaking neck, be strengthenèd!
Endure and chafe not. The winds rave
  And falter. Down the world's wide road,
  Float, float where streams the breath of God;
Nor turn thy prow to breast the wave.

Ah woe!… For what woe lacketh here?
  My children lost, my land, my lord.
  O thou great wealth of glory, stored
Of old in Ilion, year by year

We watched … and wert thou nothingness?
  What is there that I fear to say?
  And yet, what help?… Ah, well-a-day,
This ache of lying, comfortless

And haunted! Ah, my side, my brow
  And temples! All with changeful pain
  My body rocketh, and would fain
Move to the tune of tears that flow:
For tears are music too, and keep
A song unheard in hearts that weep.
  [She rises and gazes towards the Greek ships far off on the shore.

O ships, O crowding faces
  Of ships[9], O hurrying beat
  Of oars as of crawling feet,
How found ye our holy places?
Threading the narrows through,
  Out from the gulfs of the Greek,
Out to the clear dark blue,
  With hate ye came and with joy,
And the noise of your music flew,
  Clarion and pipe did shriek,
As the coilèd cords ye threw,
  Held in the heart of Troy!

What sought ye then that ye came?
  A woman, a thing abhorred:
  A King's wife that her lord
Hateth: and Castor's[10] shame
  Is hot for her sake, and the reeds
Of old Eurôtas stir
With the noise of the name of her.
She slew mine ancient King,
The Sower of fifty Seeds[11],
  And cast forth mine and me,
  As shipwrecked men, that cling
    To a reef in an empty sea.

Who am I that I sit
  Here at a Greek king's door,
Yea, in the dust of it?
  A slave that men drive before,
A woman that hath no home,
  Weeping alone for her dead;
  A low and bruisèd head,
And the glory struck therefrom.
[She starts up from her solitary brooding, and calls to the other
Trojan Women in the huts.

O Mothers of the Brazen Spear,
  And maidens, maidens, brides of shame,
  Troy is a smoke, a dying flame;
Together we will weep for her:
I call ye as a wide-wing'd bird
  Calleth the children of her fold,

To cry, ah, not the cry men heard
   In Ilion, not the songs of old,
That echoed when my hand was true
     On Priam's sceptre, and my feet
     Touched on the stone one signal beat,
   And out the Dardan music rolled;
And Troy's great Gods gave ear thereto.

[The door of one of the huts on the right opens, and the Women steal out severally, startled and afraid.

FIRST WOMAN.

[Strophe I.

How say'st thou? Whither moves thy cry,
   Thy bitter cry? Behind our door
   We heard thy heavy heart outpour
Its sorrow: and there shivered by
      Fear and a quick sob shaken
From prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!

HECUBA.

Child, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore….

SECOND WOMAN.

The ships, the ships awaken!

THIRD WOMAN.

Dear God, what would they? Overseas
Bear me afar to strange cities?

HECUBA.

Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,
     Fears of the hope-forsaken.

FIRST WOMAN.

Awake, O daughters of affliction, wake
And learn your lots! Even now the Argives break
     Their camp for sailing!

HECUBA.

Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not her
   Whom God hath maddened, lest the foe
Mock at her dreaming. Leave me clear
   From that one edge of woe.
O Troy, my Troy, thou diest here
   Most lonely; and most lonely we
   The living wander forth from thee,
     And the dead leave thee wailing!

[One of the huts on the left is now open, and the rest of the CHORUS come out severally. Their number eventually amounts to fifteen.

FOURTH WOMAN.

[Antistrophe I.

Out of the tent of the Greek king
   I steal, my Queen, with trembling breath:
   What means thy call? Not death; not death!
They would not slay so low a thing!

FIFTH WOMAN.

          O, 'tis the ship-folk crying
To deck the galleys: and we part, we part!

HECUBA.

Nay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart.

FIFTH