The Trojan Women

O Troy ill-starred; for one strange woman, one

Abhorrèd kiss, how are thine hosts undone!

TALTHYBIUS (bending over ANDROMACHE and gradually taking the Child from her).

Come, Child: let be that clasp of love

  Outwearied! Walk thy ways with me,

Up to the crested tower, above

  Thy father's wall…. Where they decree

Thy soul shall perish.—Hold him: hold!—

  Would God some other man might ply

These charges, one of duller mould,

  And nearer to the iron than I!

HECUBA.

O Child, they rob us of our own,

  Child of my Mighty One outworn:

Ours, ours thou art!—Can aught be done

  Of deeds, can aught of pain be borne,

To aid thee?—Lo, this beaten head,

This bleeding bosom! These I spread

As gifts to thee. I can thus much.

  Woe, woe for Troy, and woe for thee!

What fall yet lacketh, ere we touch

  The last dead deep of misery?

[The Child, who has started back from TALTHYBIUS, is taken up by one of the Soldiers and borne back towards the city, while ANDROMACHE is set again on the Chariot and driven off towards the ships. TALTHYBIUS goes with the Child.

* * * * *

CHORUS.

[Strophe I.

In Salamis, filled with the foaming[34]

  Of billows and murmur of bees,

Old Telamon stayed from his roaming,

  Long ago, on a throne of the seas;

Looking out on the hills olive-laden,

  Enchanted, where first from the earth

The grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden

    Athena had birth;

A soft grey crown for a city

  Belovèd a City of Light:

Yet he rested not there, nor had pity,

    But went forth in his might,

Where Heracles wandered, the lonely

  Bow-bearer, and lent him his hands

For the wrecking of one land only,

Of Ilion, Ilion only,

    Most hated of lands!

[Antistrophe I.

Of the bravest of Hellas he made him

  A ship-folk, in wrath for the Steeds,

And sailed the wide waters, and stayed him

  At last amid Simoïs' reeds;

And the oars beat slow in the river,

  And the long ropes held in the strand,

And he felt for his bow and his quiver,

    The wrath of his hand.

And the old king died; and the towers

  That Phoebus had builded did fall,

And his wrath, as a flame that devours,

    Ran red over all;

And the fields and the woodlands lay blasted,

  Long ago. Yea, twice hath the Sire

Uplifted his hand and downcast it

On the wall of the Dardan, downcast it

  As a sword and as fire.

[Strophe 2.

In vain, all in vain,

  O thou 'mid the wine-jars golden

    That movest in delicate joy,

    Ganymêdês, child of Troy,

The lips of the Highest drain

  The cup in thine hand upholden:

And thy mother, thy mother that bore thee,

  Is wasted with fire and torn;

    And the voice of her shores is heard,

    Wild, as the voice of a bird,

For lovers and children before thee

  Crying, and mothers outworn.

And the pools of thy bathing[35] are perished,

  And the wind-strewn ways of thy feet:

Yet thy face as aforetime is cherished

Of Zeus, and the breath of it sweet;

Yea, the beauty of Calm is upon it

In houses at rest and afar.

But thy land, He hath wrecked and o'erthrown it

In the wailing of war.

[Antistrophe 2.

O Love, ancient Love,

Of old to the Dardan given;

Love of the Lords of the Sky;

How didst thou lift us high

In Ilion, yea, and above

All cities, as wed with heaven!

For Zeus—O leave it unspoken:

But alas for the love of the Morn;

Morn of the milk-white wing,

The gentle, the earth-loving,

That shineth on battlements broken

In Troy, and a people forlorn!

 And, lo, in her bowers Tithônus,

Our brother, yet sleeps as of old:

O, she too hath loved us and known us,

And the Steeds of her star, flashing gold,

Stooped hither and bore him above us;

Then blessed we the Gods in our joy.

But all that made them to love us

Hath perished from Troy.

* * * * *

[As the song ceases, the King MENELAUS enters, richly armed and followed by a bodyguard of Soldiers. He is a prey to violent and conflicting emotions.