WOMAN.

My heart with dread is dying!

SIXTH WOMAN.

An herald from the Greek hath come!

FIFTH WOMAN.

How have they cast me, and to whom
A bondmaid?

HECUBA.

Peace, child: wait thy doom.
Our lots are near the trying.

FOURTH WOMAN.

Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,
Or some lone island of the tossing sea,
      Far, far from Troy?

HECUBA.

And I the agèd, where go I,
  A winter-frozen bee, a slave
Death-shapen, as the stones that lie
  Hewn on a dead man's grave:
The children of mine enemy
To foster, or keep watch before
The threshold of a master's door,
  I that was Queen in Troy!

A WOMAN TO ANOTHER.

[Strophe 2.

And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?

THE OTHER.

The shuttle still shall flit and change
Beneath my fingers, but the loom,
      Sister, be strange.

ANOTHER (wildly).

Look, my dead child! My child, my love,
The last look….

ANOTHER.

      Oh, there cometh worse.
A Greek's bed in the dark….

ANOTHER.

      God curse
That night and all the powers thereof!

ANOTHER.

Or pitchers to and fro to bear
   To some Pirênê[12] on the hill,
  Where the proud water craveth still
Its broken-hearted minister.

ANOTHER.

God guide me yet to Theseus' land[13],
  The gentle land, the famed afar….

ANOTHER.

But not the hungry foam—Ah, never!—
Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river,
To bow to Menelaus' hand,
  That wasted Troy with war!

A WOMAN.

[Antistrophe 2.

They told us of a land high-born,
  Where glimmers round Olympus' roots
A lordly river, red with corn
  And burdened fruits.

ANOTHER.

Aye, that were next in my desire
  To Athens, where good spirits dwell….

ANOTHER.

Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire
  That front the Tyrian's Citadel:
First mother, she, of Sicily
  And mighty mountains: fame hath told
  Their crowns of goodness manifold….

ANOTHER.

And, close beyond the narrowing sea,
A sister land, where float enchanted
  Ionian summits, wave on wave,
And Crathis of the burning tresses
Makes red the happy vale, and blesses
With gold of fountains spirit-haunted
  Homes of true men and brave!

LEADER.

But lo, who cometh: and his lips
  Grave with the weight of dooms unknown:
A Herald from the Grecian ships.
  Swift comes he, hot-foot to be done
And finished. Ah, what bringeth he
Of news or judgment? Slaves are we,
  Spoils that the Greek hath won!

[TALTHYBIUS[14], followed by some Soldiers, enters from the left.

TALTHYBIUS.

Thou know'st me, Hecuba. Often have I crossed
Thy plain with tidings from the Hellene host.
'Tis I, Talthybius…. Nay, of ancient use
Thou know'st me. And I come to bear thee news.

HECUBA.

     Ah me, 'tis here, 'tis here,
Women of Troy, our long embosomed fear!

TALTHYBIUS.

The lots are cast, if that it was ye feared.

HECUBA.

     What lord, what land…. Ah me,
Phthia or Thebes, or sea-worn Thessaly?

TALTHYBIUS.

Each hath her own. Ye go not in one herd.

HECUBA.

Say then what lot hath any? What of joy
Falls, or can fall on any child of Troy?

TALTHYBIUS.

I know: but make thy questions severally.

HECUBA.

      My stricken one must be
Still first. Say how Cassandra's portion lies.

TALTHYBIUS.

Chosen from all for Agamemnon's prize!

HECUBA.

     How, for his Spartan bride
A tirewoman? For Helen's sister's pride?

TALTHYBIUS.

Nay, nay: a bride herself, for the King's bed.

HECUBA.

The sainted of Apollo? And her own
     Prize that God promised
Out of the golden clouds, her virgin crown?…

TALTHYBIUS.

He loved her for that same strange holiness.

HECUBA.

      Daughter, away, away,
      Cast all away,
The haunted Keys[15], the lonely stole's array
That kept thy body like a sacred place!

TALTHYBIUS.

Is't not rare fortune that the King hath smiled
On such a maid?

HECUBA.

      What of that other child
Ye reft from me but now?

TALTHYBIUS (speaking with some constraint).

Polyxena? Or what child meanest thou?

HECUBA.

The same. What man now hath her, or what doom?

TALTHYBIUS.

She rests apart, to watch Achilles' tomb.

HECUBA.

To watch a tomb? My daughter? What is this?…
Speak, Friend? What fashion of the laws of Greece?

TALTHYBIUS.

Count thy maid happy! She hath naught of ill
To fear….

HECUBA.

What meanest thou? She liveth still?

TALTHYBIUS.

I mean, she hath one toil[16] that holds her free
From all toil else.

HECUBA.

     What of Andromache,
Wife of mine iron-hearted Hector, where
  Journeyeth she?

TALTHYBIUS.

Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, hath taken her.

HECUBA.

     And I, whose slave am I,
The shaken head, the arm that creepeth by,
     Staff-crutchèd, like to fall?

TALTHYBIUS.

Odysseus[17], Ithaca's king, hath thee for thrall.

HECUBA.

Beat, beat the crownless head:
Rend the cheek till the tears run red!
A lying man and a pitiless
Shall be lord of me, a heart full-flown
  With scorn of righteousness:
O heart of a beast where law is none,
Where all things change so that lust be fed,
The oath and the deed, the right and the wrong,
Even the hate of the forked tongue:
Even the hate turns and is cold,
False as the love that was false of old!

O Women of Troy, weep for me!
Yea, I am gone: I am gone my ways.
Mine is the crown of misery,
The bitterest day of all our days.

LEADER.

Thy fate thou knowest, Queen: but I know not
What lord of South or North has won my lot.