The Trojan Women and Other Plays

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Source: Project Gutenberg eBooks #10096 (The Trojan Women, tr. Gilbert Murray, 1905), #5063 (Iphigenia in Tauris, tr. Gilbert Murray, 1910) and #77336 (Hecuba, tr. Michael Wodhull, in Hecuba and Other Plays, ed. Henry Morley, 1888) Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10096 Translator: Gilbert Murray; Michael Wodhull (1905) Public domain basis: Complete texts of The Trojan Women and Iphigenia in Tauris (Murray, verse) and Hecuba (Wodhull, 1782 verse). Iphigenia in Aulis and the remaining extant plays are in euripides-iphigenia-in-aulis-and-other-plays; Hippolytus, Electra, Alcestis, Medea and Bacchae are already in medea-and-other-plays / the-bacchae-and-other-plays. Public domain.

THE TROJAN WOMEN (Translated by Gilbert Murray, 1905)

THE TROJAN WOMEN OF EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY

GILBERT MURRAY, LL.D., D.LITT.

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

1915

THE TROJAN WOMEN

In his clear preface, Gilbert Murray says with truth that The Trojan Women, valued by the usage of the stage, is not a perfect play. "It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought into music." Yet it is one of the greater dramas of the elder world. In one situation, with little movement, with few figures, it flashes out a great dramatic lesson, the infinite pathos of a successful wrong. It has in it the very soul of the tragic. It even goes beyond the limited tragic, and hints that beyond the defeat may come a greater glory than will be the fortune of the victors. And thus through its pity and terror it purifies our souls to thoughts of peace.

Great art has no limits of locality or time. Its tidings are timeless, and its messages are universal. The Trojan Women was first performed in 415 B.C., from a story of the siege of Troy which even then was ancient history. But the pathos of it is as modern to us as it was to the Athenians. The terrors of war have not changed in three thousand years. Euripides had that to say of war which we have to say of it to-day, and had learned that which we are even now learning, that when most triumphant it brings as much wretchedness to the victors as to the vanquished. In this play the great conquest "seems to be a great joy and is in truth a great misery." The tragedy of war has in no essential altered. The god Poseidon mourns over Troy as he might over the cities of to-day, when he cries:

"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!"

To the cities of this present day might the prophetess Cassandra speak her message:

"Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war! Yet if war come, there is a crown in death For her that striveth well and perisheth Unstained: to die in evil were the stain!"

A throb of human sympathy as if with one of our sisters of to-day comes to us at the end, when the city is destroyed and its queen would throw herself, living, into its flames. To be of the action of this play the imagination needs not to travel back over three thousand years of history. It can simply leap a thousand leagues of ocean.

If ever wars are to be ended, the imagination of man must end them. To the common mind, in spite of all its horrors, there is still something glorious in war. Preachers have preached against it in vain; economists have argued against its wastefulness in vain. The imagination of a great poet alone can finally show to the imagination of the world that even the glories of war are an empty delusion. Euripides shows us, as the centre of his drama, women battered and broken by inconceivable torture--the widowed Hecuba, Andromache with her child dashed to death, Cassandra ravished and made mad--yet does he show that theirs are the unconquered and unconquerable spirits. The victorious men, flushed with pride, have remorse and mockery dealt out to them by those they fought for, and go forth to unpitied death. Never surely can a great tragedy seem more real to us, or purge our souls more truly of the unreality of our thoughts and feelings concerning vital issues, than can The Trojan Women at this moment of the history of the world.

FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD.

May the first, 1915.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Judged by common standards, the Troädes is far from a perfect play; it is scarcely even a good play. It is an intense study of one great situation, with little plot, little construction, little or no relief or variety. The only movement of the drama is a gradual extinguishing of all the familiar lights of human life, with, perhaps, at the end, a suggestion that in the utterness of night, when all fears of a possible worse thing are passed, there is in some sense peace and even glory. But the situation itself has at least this dramatic value, that it is different from what it seems.

The consummation of a great conquest, a thing celebrated in paeans and thanksgivings, the very height of the day-dreams of unregenerate man--it seems to be a great joy, and it is in truth a great misery. It is conquest seen when the thrill of battle is over, and nothing remains but to wait and think. We feel in the background the presence of the conquerors, sinister and disappointed phantoms; of the conquered men, after long torment, now resting in death. But the living drama for Euripides lay in the conquered women. It is from them that he has named his play and built up his scheme of parts: four figures clearly lit and heroic, the others in varying grades of characterisation, nameless and barely articulate, mere half-heard voices of an eternal sorrow.

Indeed, the most usual condemnation of the play is not that it is dull, but that it is too harrowing; that scene after scene passes beyond the due limits of tragic art. There are points to be pleaded against this criticism. The very beauty of the most fearful scenes, in spite of their fearfulness, is one; the quick comfort of the lyrics is another, falling like a spell of peace when the strain is too hard to bear (cf. p. 89). But the main defence is that, like many of the greatest works of art, the Troädes is something more than art. It is also a prophecy, a bearing of witness. And the prophet, bound to deliver his message, walks outside the regular ways of the artist.

For some time before the Troädes was produced, Athens, now entirely in the hands of the War Party, had been engaged in an enterprise which, though on military grounds defensible, was bitterly resented by the more humane minority, and has been selected by Thucydides as the great crucial crime of the war. She had succeeded in compelling the neutral Dorian island of Mêlos to take up arms against her, and after a long siege had conquered the quiet and immemorially ancient town, massacred the men and sold the women and children into slavery. Mêlos fell in the autumn of 416 B.C. The Troädes was produced in the following spring. And while the gods of the prologue were prophesying destruction at sea for the sackers of Troy, the fleet of the sackers of Mêlos, flushed with conquest and marked by a slight but unforgettable taint of sacrilege, was actually preparing to set sail for its fatal enterprise against Sicily.

Not, of course, that we have in the Troädes a case of political allusion. Far from it. Euripides does not mean Mêlos when he says Troy, nor mean Alcibiades' fleet when he speaks of Agamemnon's. But he writes under the influence of a year which to him, as to Thucydides, had been filled full of indignant pity and of dire foreboding. This tragedy is perhaps, in European literature, the first great expression of the spirit of pity for mankind exalted into a moving principle; a principle which has made the most precious, and possibly the most destructive, elements of innumerable rebellions, revolutions, and martyrdoms, and of at least two great religions.

Pity is a rebel passion. Its hand is against the strong, against the organised force of society, against conventional sanctions and accepted Gods. It is the Kingdom of Heaven within us fighting against the brute powers of the world; and it is apt to have those qualities of unreason, of contempt for the counting of costs and the balancing of sacrifices, of recklessness, and even, in the last resort, of ruthlessness, which so often mark the paths of heavenly things and the doings of the children of light. It brings not peace, but a sword.

So it was with Euripides. The Troädes itself has indeed almost no fierceness and singularly little thought of revenge. It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought into music, as it were, and made beautiful by "the most tragic of the poets." But its author lived ever after in a deepening atmosphere of strife and even of hatred, down to the day when, "because almost all in Athens rejoiced at his suffering," he took his way to the remote valleys of Macedon to write the Bacchae and to die.

G. M.

THE TROJAN WOMEN

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

THE GOD POSEIDON.

THE GODDESS PALLAS ATHENA.

HECUBA, Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector and Paris.

CASSANDRA, daughter of Hecuba, a prophetess.

ANDROMACHE, wife of Hector, Prince of Troy.

HELEN, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta; carried off by Paris, Prince of Troy.

TALTHYBIUS, Herald of the Greeks.

MENELAUS, King of Sparta, and, together with his brother Agamemnon, General of the Greeks.

SOLDIERS ATTENDANT ON TALTHYBIUS AND MENELAUS.

CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN, YOUNG AND OLD, MAIDEN AND MARRIED.

The Troädes was first acted in the year 415 B.C. "The first prize was won by Xenocles, whoever he may have been, with the four plays Oedipus, Lycaon, Bacchae and Athamas, a Satyr-play. The second by Euripides with the Alexander, Palamêdês, Troädes and Sisyphus, a Satyr-play."--AELIAN, Varia Historia, ii. 8.

THE TROJAN WOMEN

The scene represents a battlefield, a few days after the battle. At the back are the walls of Troy, partially ruined. In front of them, to right and left, are some huts, containing those of the Captive Women who have been specially set apart for the chief Greek leaders. At one side some dead bodies of armed men are visible. In front a tall woman with white hair is lying on the ground asleep.

It is the dusk of early dawn, before sunrise. The figure of the god POSEIDON _ is dimly seen before the walls._

POSEIDON.[1]

Up from Aegean caverns, pool by pool Of blue salt sea, where feet most beautiful Of Nereid maidens weave beneath the foam Their long sea-dances, I, their lord, am come, Poseidon of the Sea. 'Twas I whose power, With great Apollo, builded tower by tower These walls of Troy; and still my care doth stand True to the ancient People of my hand; Which now as smoke is perished, in the shock Of Argive spears. Down from Parnassus' rock The Greek Epeios came, of Phocian seed, And wrought by Pallas' mysteries a Steed Marvellous[2], big with arms; and through my wall It passed, a death-fraught image magical. The groves are empty and the sanctuaries Run red with blood. Unburied Priam lies By his own hearth, on God's high altar-stair, And Phrygian gold goes forth and raiment rare To the Argive ships; and weary soldiers roam Waiting the wind that blows at last for home, For wives and children, left long years away, Beyond the seed's tenth fullness and decay, To work this land's undoing.

And for me, Since Argive Hera conquereth, and she Who wrought with Hera to the Phrygians' woe, Pallas, behold, I bow mine head and go Forth from great Ilion[3] and mine altars old. When a still city lieth in the hold Of Desolation, all God's spirit there Is sick and turns from worship.--Hearken where The ancient River waileth with a voice Of many women, portioned by the choice Of war amid new lords, as the lots leap For Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep Of Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are, High women, chosen from the waste of war For the great kings, behind these portals hid; And with them that Laconian Tyndarid[4], Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize. And this unhappy one--would any eyes Gaze now on Hecuba? Here at the Gates She lies 'mid many tears for many fates Of wrong. One child beside Achilles' grave In secret slain[5], Polyxena the brave, Lies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone; And, lo, Cassandra[6], she the Chosen One, Whom Lord Apollo spared to walk her way A swift and virgin spirit, on this day Lust hath her, and she goeth garlanded A bride of wrath to Agamemnon's bed.

[He turns to go; and another divine Presence becomes visible in the dusk. It is the goddess PALLAS ATHENA.

O happy long ago, farewell, farewell, Ye shining towers and mine old citadel; Broken by Pallas[7], Child of God, or still Thy roots had held thee true.

PALLAS.

Is it the will Of God's high Brother, to whose hand is given Great power of old, and worship of all Heaven, To suffer speech from one whose enmities This day are cast aside?

POSEIDON.

His will it is: Kindred and long companionship withal, Most high Athena, are things magical.

PALLAS.

Blest be thy gentle mood!--Methinks I see A road of comfort here, for thee and me.

POSEIDON.

Thou hast some counsel of the Gods, or word Spoken of Zeus? Or is it tidings heard From some far Spirit?

PALLAS.

For this Ilion's sake, Whereon we tread, I seek thee, and would make My hand as thine.

POSEIDON.

Hath that old hate and deep Failed, where she lieth in her ashen sleep? Thou pitiest her?

PALLAS.

Speak first; wilt thou be one In heart with me and hand till all be done?

POSEIDON.

Yea; but lay bare thy heart. For this land's sake Thou comest, not for Hellas?

PALLAS.

I would make Mine ancient enemies laugh for joy, and bring On these Greek ships a bitter homecoming.

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 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.

TALTHYBIUS.

Go, seek Cassandra, men! Make your best speed, That I may leave her with the King, and lead These others to their divers lords.... Ha, there! What means that sudden light? Is it the flare Of torches?

[Light is seen shining through the crevices of the second hut on the right. He moves towards it.

Would they fire their prison rooms, Or how, these dames of Troy?--'Fore God, the dooms Are known, and now they burn themselves and die[18] Rather than sail with us! How savagely In days like these a free neck chafes beneath Its burden!... Open! Open quick! Such death Were bliss to them, it may be: but 'twill bring Much wrath, and leave me shamed before the King!

HECUBA.

There is no fire, no peril: 'tis my child, Cassandra, by the breath of God made wild.

[The door opens from within and CASSANDRA enters, white-robed and wreathed like a Priestess, a great torch in her hand. She is singing softly to herself and does not see the Herald or the scene before her.

CASSANDRA.

Lift, lift it high: [Strophe. Give it to mine hand! Lo, I bear a flame Unto God! I praise his name. I light with a burning brand This sanctuary. Blessèd is he that shall wed, And blessèd, blessèd am I In Argos: a bride to lie With a king in a king's bed.

Hail, O Hymen[19] red, O Torch that makest one! Weepest thou, Mother mine own? Surely thy cheek is pale With tears, tears that wail For a land and a father dead. But I go garlanded: I am the Bride of Desire: Therefore my torch is borne-- Lo, the lifting of morn, Lo, the leaping of fire!--

For thee, O Hymen bright, For thee, O Moon of the Deep, So Law hath charged, for the light Of a maid's last sleep.

Awake, O my feet, awake: [Antistrophe. Our father's hope is won! Dance as the dancing skies Over him, where he lies Happy beneath the sun!... Lo, the Ring that I make....

[She makes a circle round her with a torch, and visions appear to her.

Apollo!... Ah, is it thou? O shrine in the laurels cold, I bear thee still, as of old, Mine incense! Be near to me now.

[She waves the torch as though bearing incense.

O Hymen, Hymen fleet: Quick torch that makest one!... How? Am I still alone? Laugh as I laugh, and twine In the dance, O Mother mine: Dear feet, be near my feet!

Come, greet ye Hymen, greet Hymen with songs of pride: Sing to him loud and long, Cry, cry, when the song Faileth, for joy of the bride!

O Damsels girt in the gold Of Ilion, cry, cry ye, For him that is doomed of old To be lord of me!

LEADER.

O hold the damsel, lest her trancèd feet Lift her afar, Queen, toward the Hellene fleet!

HECUBA.

O Fire, Fire, where men make marriages Surely thou hast thy lot; but what are these Thou bringest flashing? Torches savage-wild And far from mine old dreams.--Alas, my child, How little dreamed I then of wars or red Spears of the Greek to lay thy bridal bed! Give me thy brand; it hath no holy blaze Thus in thy frenzy flung. Nor all thy days Nor all thy griefs have changed them yet, nor learned Wisdom.--Ye women, bear the pine half burned To the chamber back; and let your drownèd eyes Answer the music of these bridal cries!

[She takes the torch and gives it to one of the women.

CASSANDRA.

O Mother, fill mine hair with happy flowers, And speed me forth. Yea, if my spirit cowers, Drive me with wrath! So liveth Loxias[20], A bloodier bride than ever Helen was Go I to Agamemnon, Lord most high Of Hellas!... I shall kill him, mother; I Shall kill him, and lay waste his house with fire As he laid ours. My brethren and my sire Shall win again....[21]

(Checking herself) But part I must let be, And speak not. Not the axe that craveth me, And more than me; not the dark wanderings Of mother-murder that my bridal brings, And all the House of Atreus down, down, down....

Nay, I will show thee. Even now this town Is happier than the Greeks. I know the power Of God is on me: but this little hour, Wilt thou but listen, I will hold him back!

One love, one woman's beauty, o'er the track Of hunted Helen, made their myriads fall. And this their King so wise[22], who ruleth all, What wrought he? Cast out Love that Hate might feed: Gave to his brother his own child, his seed Of gladness, that a woman fled, and fain To fly for ever, should be turned again!

So the days waned, and armies on the shore Of Simois stood and strove and died. Wherefore? No man had moved their landmarks; none had shook Their wallèd towns.--And they whom Ares took, Had never seen their children: no wife came With gentle arms to shroud the limbs of them For burial, in a strange and angry earth Laid dead. And there at home, the same long dearth: Women that lonely died, and aged men Waiting for sons that ne'er should turn again, Nor know their graves, nor pour drink-offerings, To still the unslakèd dust. These be the things The conquering Greek hath won!

But we--what pride, What praise of men were sweeter?--fighting died To save our people. And when war was red Around us, friends upbore the gentle dead Home, and dear women's heads about them wound White shrouds, and here they sleep in the old ground Belovèd. And the rest long days fought on, Dwelling with wives and children, not alone And joyless, like these Greeks.

And Hector's woe, What is it? He is gone, and all men know His glory, and how true a heart he bore. It is the gift the Greek hath brought! Of yore Men saw him not, nor knew him. Yea, and even Paris[23] hath loved withal a child of heaven: Else had his love but been as others are. Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war! Yet if war come, there is a crown in death For her that striveth well and perisheth Unstained: to die in evil were the stain! Therefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain, Nor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foe And mine by this my wooing is brought low.

TALTHYBIUS (at last breaking through the spell that has held him).

I swear, had not Apollo made thee mad, Not lightly hadst thou flung this shower of bad Bodings, to speed my General o'er the seas! 'Fore God, the wisdoms and the greatnesses Of seeming, are they hollow all, as things Of naught? This son of Atreus, of all kings Most mighty, hath so bowed him to the love Of this mad maid, and chooseth her above All women! By the Gods, rude though I be, I would not touch her hand!

Look thou; I see Thy lips are blind, and whatso words they speak, Praises of Troy or shamings of the Greek, I cast to the four winds! Walk at my side In peace!... And heaven content him of his bride!

[He moves as though to go, but turns to HECUBA, and speaks more gently.

And thou shalt follow to Odysseus' host When the word comes. 'Tis a wise queen[24] thou go'st To serve, and gentle: so the Ithacans say.

CASSANDRA (seeing for the first time the Herald and all the scene).

How fierce a slave!... O Heralds, Heralds! Yea, Voices of Death[25]; and mists are over them Of dead men's anguish, like a diadem, These weak abhorred things that serve the hate Of kings and peoples!...

To Odysseus' gate My mother goeth, say'st thou? Is God's word As naught, to me in silence ministered, That in this place she dies?[26]... (To herself) No more; no more! Why should I speak the shame of them, before They come?... Little he knows, that hard-beset Spirit, what deeps of woe await him yet; Till all these tears of ours and harrowings Of Troy, by his, shall be as golden things. Ten years behind ten years athwart his way Waiting: and home, lost and unfriended....

Nay: Why should Odysseus' labours vex my breath? On; hasten; guide me to the house of Death, To lie beside my bridegroom!...

Thou Greek King, Who deem'st thy fortune now so high a thing, Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see, In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee: And with thee, with thee ... there, where yawneth plain A rift of the hills, raging with winter rain, Dead ... and out-cast ... and naked.... It is I Beside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry, And ravin on God's chosen!

[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the wreaths.

O, ye wreaths! Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes About me, shapes of joyance mystical, Begone! I have forgot the festival, Forgot the joy. Begone! I tear ye, so, From off me!... Out on the swift winds they go. With flesh still clean I give them back to thee, Still white, O God, O light that leadest me!

[_Turning upon the Herald.

Where lies the galley? Whither shall I tread? See that your watch be set, your sail be spread The wind comes quick[27]! Three Powers--mark me, thou!-- There be in Hell, and one walks with thee now! Mother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweet City, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great Sire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead, And I am with you, yea, with crowned head I come, and shining from the fires that feed On these that slay us now, and all their seed!

[She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers Hecuba, after waiting for an instant motionless, falls to the ground.

LEADER OF CHORUS.

The Queen, ye Watchers! See, she falls, she falls, Rigid without a word! O sorry thralls, Too late! And will ye leave her downstricken, A woman, and so old? Raise her again!

[Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses their aid and speaks without rising.

HECUBA.

Let lie ... the love we seek not is no love.... This ruined body! Is the fall thereof Too deep for all that now is over me Of anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be? Ye Gods.... Alas! Why call on things so weak For aid? Yet there is something that doth seek, Crying, for God, when one of us hath woe. O, I will think of things gone long ago And weave them to a song, like one more tear In the heart of misery.... All kings we were; And I must wed a king. And sons I brought My lord King, many sons ... nay, that were naught; But high strong princes, of all Troy the best. Hellas nor Troäs nor the garnered East Held such a mother! And all these things beneath The Argive spear I saw cast down in death, And shore these tresses at the dead men's feet. Yea, and the gardener of my garden great, It was not any noise of him nor tale I wept for; these eyes saw him, when the pale Was broke, and there at the altar Priam fell Murdered, and round him all his citadel Sacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold, Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold, 'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone; And no hope left, that I shall look upon Their faces any more, nor they on mine. And now my feet tread on the utmost line: An old, old slave-woman, I pass below Mine enemies' gates; and whatso task they know For this age basest, shall be mine; the door, Bowing, to shut and open.... I that bore Hector!... and meal to grind, and this racked head Bend to the stones after a royal bed; Tom rags about me, aye, and under them Tom flesh; 'twill make a woman sick for shame! Woe's me; and all that one man's arms might hold One woman, what long seas have o'er me rolled And roll for ever!... O my child, whose white Soul laughed amid the laughter of God's light, Cassandra, what hands and how strange a day Have loosed thy zone! And thou, Polyxena, Where art thou? And my sons? Not any seed Of man nor woman now shall help my need. Why raise me any more? What hope have I To hold me? Take this slave that once trod high In Ilion; cast her on her bed of clay Rock-pillowed, to lie down, and pass away Wasted with tears. And whatso man they call Happy, believe not ere the last day fall!

* * * * *

CHORUS[28]. [Strophe.

O Muse, be near me now, and make A strange song for Ilion's sake, Till a tone of tears be about mine ears And out of my lips a music break For Troy, Troy, and the end of the years: When the wheels of the Greek above me pressed, And the mighty horse-hoofs beat my breast; And all around were the Argive spears A towering Steed of golden rein-- O gold without, dark steel within!-- Ramped in our gates; and all the plain Lay silent where the Greeks had been. And a cry broke from all the folk Gathered above on Ilion's rock: "Up, up, O fear is over now! To Pallas, who hath saved us living, To Pallas bear this victory-vow!" Then rose the old man from his room, The merry damsel left her loom, And each bound death about his brow With minstrelsy and high thanksgiving!

[Antistrophe.

O, swift were all in Troy that day, And girt them to the portal-way, Marvelling at that mountain Thing Smooth-carven, where the Argives lay, And wrath, and Ilion's vanquishing: Meet gift for her that spareth not[29], Heaven's yokeless Rider. Up they brought Through the steep gates her offering: Like some dark ship that climbs the shore On straining cables, up, where stood Her marble throne, her hallowed floor, Who lusted for her people's blood.

A very weariness of joy Fell with the evening over Troy: And lutes of Afric mingled there With Phrygian songs: and many a maiden, With white feet glancing light as air, Made happy music through the gloom: And fires on many an inward room All night broad-flashing, flung their glare On laughing eyes and slumber-laden.

A MAIDEN.

I was among the dancers there To Artemis[30], and glorying sang Her of the Hills, the Maid most fair, Daughter of Zeus: and, lo, there rang A shout out of the dark, and fell Deathlike from street to street, and made A silence in the citadel: And a child cried, as if afraid, And hid him in his mother's veil. Then stalked the Slayer from his den, The hand of Pallas served her well! O blood, blood of Troy was deep About the streets and altars then: And in the wedded rooms of sleep, Lo, the desolate dark alone, And headless things, men stumbled on.

And forth, lo, the women go, The crown of War, the crown of Woe, To bear the children of the foe And weep, weep, for Ilion!

* * * * *

[As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching from the town, laden with spoils. On it sits a mourning Woman with a child in her arms.

LEADER.

Lo, yonder on the heapèd crest Of a Greek wain, Andromachê[31], As one that o'er an unknown sea Tosseth; and on her wave-borne breast Her loved one clingeth, Hector's child, Astyanax.... O most forlorn Of women, whither go'st thou, borne 'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piled Spoils of the dead, and pageantry Of them that hunted Ilion down? Aye, richly thy new lord shall crown The mountain shrines of Thessaly!

ANDROMACHE [Strophe I.

Forth to the Greek I go, Driven as a beast is driven.

HEC. Woe, woe!

AND. Nay, mine is woe: Woe to none other given, And the song and the crown therefor!

HEC. O Zeus!

AND. He hates thee sore!

HEC. Children!

AND. No more, no more To aid thee: their strife is striven!

HECUBA. [Antistrophe I.

Troy, Troy is gone!

AND. Yea, and her treasure parted.

HEC. Gone, gone, mine own Children, the noble-hearted!

AND. Sing sorrow....

HEC. For me, for me!

AND. Sing for the Great City, That falleth, falleth to be A shadow, a fire departed.

ANDROMACHE.

[Strophe 2.

Come to me, O my lover!

HEC. The dark shroudeth him over, My flesh, woman, not thine, not thine!

AND. Make of thine arms my cover!

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe 2.

O thou whose wound was deepest, Thou that my children keepest, Priam, Priam, O age-worn King, Gather me where thou sleepest.

ANDROMACHE (her hands upon her heart).

[Strophe 3.

O here is the deep of desire,

HEC. (How? And is this not woe?)

AND. For a city burned with fire;

HEC. (It beateth, blow on blow.)

AND. God's wrath for Paris, thy son, that he died not long ago:

Who sold for his evil love Troy and the towers thereof: Therefore the dead men lie Naked, beneath the eye Of Pallas, and vultures croak And flap for joy: So Love hath laid his yoke On the neck of Troy!

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe 3.

O mine own land, my home,

AND. (I weep for thee, left forlorn,)

HEC. See'st thou what end is come?

AND. (And the house where my babes were born.)

HEC. A desolate Mother we leave, O children, a City of scorn:

Even as the sound of a song[32] Left by the way, but long Remembered, a tune of tears Falling where no man hears, In the old house, as rain, For things loved of yore: But the dead hath lost his pain And weeps no more.

LEADER.

How sweet are tears to them in bitter stress, And sorrow, and all the songs of heaviness.

ANDROMACHE[33].

Mother of him of old, whose mighty spear Smote Greeks like chaff, see'st thou what things are here?

HECUBA.

I see God's hand, that buildeth a great crown For littleness, and hath cast the mighty down.

ANDROMACHE.

I and my babe are driven among the droves Of plundered cattle. O, when fortune moves So swift, the high heart like a slave beats low.

HECUBA.

'Tis fearful to be helpless. Men but now Have taken Cassandra, and I strove in vain.

ANDROMACHE.

Ah, woe is me; hath Ajax come again? But other evil yet is at thy gate.

HECUBA.

Nay, Daughter, beyond number, beyond weight My evils are! Doom raceth against doom.

ANDROMACHE.

Polyxena across Achilles' tomb Lies slain, a gift flung to the dreamless dead.

HECUBA.

My sorrow!... 'Tis but what Talthybius said: So plain a riddle, and I read it not.

ANDROMACHE.

I saw her lie, and stayed this chariot; And raiment wrapt on her dead limbs, and beat My breast for her.

HECUBA (to herself).

O the foul sin of it! The wickedness! My child. My child! Again I cry to thee. How cruelly art thou slain!

ANDROMACHE.

She hath died her death, and howso dark it be, Her death is sweeter than my misery.

HECUBA.

Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope.

ANDROMACHE.

O Mother, having ears, hear thou this word Fear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirred With joy. To die is only not to be; And better to be dead than grievously Living. They have no pain, they ponder not Their own wrong. But the living that is brought From joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam, As in a desert, lost, from its old home. Thy daughter lieth now as one unborn, Dead, and naught knowing of the lust and scorn That slew her. And I ... long since I drew my bow Straight at the heart of good fame; and I know My shaft hit; and for that am I the more Fallen from peace. All that men praise us for, I loved for Hector's sake, and sought to win. I knew that alway, be there hurt therein Or utter innocence, to roam abroad Hath ill report for women; so I trod Down the desire thereof, and walked my way In mine own garden. And light words and gay Parley of women never passed my door. The thoughts of mine own heart ... I craved no more.... Spoke with me, and I was happy. Constantly I brought fair silence and a tranquil eye For Hector's greeting, and watched well the way Of living, where to guide and where obey. And, lo! some rumour of this peace, being gone Forth to the Greek, hath cursed me. Achilles' son, So soon as I was taken, for his thrall Chose me. I shall do service in the hall Of them that slew.... How? Shall I thrust aside Hector's beloved face, and open wide My heart to this new lord? Oh, I should stand A traitor to the dead! And if my hand And flesh shrink from him ... lo, wrath and despite O'er all the house, and I a slave!

One night, One night ... aye, men have said it ... maketh tame A woman in a man's arms.... O shame, shame! What woman's lips can so forswear her dead, And give strange kisses in another's bed? Why, not a dumb beast, not a colt will run In the yoke untroubled, when her mate is gone-- A thing not in God's image, dull, unmoved Of reason. O my Hector! best beloved, That, being mine, wast all in all to me, My prince, my wise one, O my majesty Of valiance! No man's touch had ever come Near me, when thou from out my father's home Didst lead me and make me thine.... And thou art dead, And I war-flung to slavery and the bread Of shame in Hellas, over bitter seas! What knoweth she of evils like to these, That dead Polyxena, thou weepest for? There liveth not in my life any more The hope that others have. Nor will I tell The lie to mine own heart, that aught is well Or shall be well.... Yet, O, to dream were sweet!

LEADER.

Thy feet have trod the pathway of my feet, And thy clear sorrow teacheth me mine own.

HECUBA.

Lo, yonder ships: I ne'er set foot on one, But tales and pictures tell, when over them Breaketh a storm not all too strong to stem, Each man strives hard, the tiller gripped, the mast Manned, the hull baled, to face it: till at last Too strong breaks the o'erwhelming sea: lo, then They cease, and yield them up as broken men To fate and the wild waters. Even so I in my many sorrows bear me low, Nor curse, nor strive that other things may be. The great wave rolled from God hath conquered me. But, O, let Hector and the fates that fell On Hector, sleep. Weep for him ne'er so well, Thy weeping shall not wake him. Honour thou The new lord that is set above thee now, And make of thine own gentle piety A prize to lure his heart. So shalt thou be A strength to them that love us, and--God knows, It may be--rear this babe among his foes, My Hector's child, to manhood and great aid For Ilion. So her stones may yet be laid One on another, if God will, and wrought Again to a city! Ah, how thought to thought Still beckons!... But what minion of the Greek Is this that cometh, with new words to speak?

[Enter TALTHYBIUS with a band of Soldiers. He comes forward slowly and with evident disquiet.

TALTHYBIUS.

Spouse of the noblest heart that beat in Troy, Andromache, hate me not! 'Tis not in joy I tell thee. But the people and the Kings Have with one voice....

ANDROMACHE.

What is it? Evil things Are on thy lips!

TALTHYBIUS.

Tis ordered, this child.... Oh, How can I tell her of it?

ANDROMACHE.

Doth he not go With me, to the same master?

TALTHYBIUS.

There is none In Greece, shall e'er be master of thy son.

ANDROMACHE.

How? Will they leave him here to build again The wreck?...

TALTHYBIUS. I know not how to tell thee plain!

ANDROMACHE.

Thou hast a gentle heart ... if it be ill, And not good, news thou hidest!

TALTHYBIUS.

'Tis their will Thy son shall die.... The whole vile thing is said Now!

ANDROMACHE. Oh, I could have borne mine enemy's bed!

TALTHYBIUS.

And speaking in the council of the host Odysseus hath prevailed--

ANDROMACHE.

O lost! lost! lost!... Forgive me! It is not easy....

TALTHYBIUS.

... That the son Of one so perilous be not fostered on To manhood--

ANDROMACHE.

God; may his own counsel fall On his own sons!

TALTHYBIUS.

... But from this crested wall Of Troy be dashed, and die.... Nay, let the thing Be done. Thou shalt be wiser so. Nor cling So fiercely to him. Suffer as a brave Woman in bitter pain; nor think to have Strength which thou hast not. Look about thee here! Canst thou see help, or refuge anywhere? Thy land is fallen and thy lord, and thou A prisoner and alone, one woman; how Canst battle against us? For thine own good I would not have thee strive, nor make ill blood And shame about thee.... Ah, nor move thy lips In silence there, to cast upon the ships Thy curse! One word of evil to the host, This babe shall have no burial, but be tossed Naked.... Ah, peace! And bear as best thou may, War's fortune. So thou shalt not go thy way Leaving this child unburied; nor the Greek Be stern against thee, if thy heart be meek!

ANDROMACHE (to the child).

Go, die, my best-beloved, my cherished one, In fierce men's hands, leaving me here alone. Thy father was too valiant; that is why They slay thee! Other children, like to die, Might have been spared for that. But on thy head His good is turned to evil.

O thou bed And bridal; O the joining of the hand, That led me long ago to Hector's land To bear, O not a lamb for Grecian swords To slaughter, but a Prince o'er all the hordes Enthroned of wide-flung Asia.... Weepest thou? Nay, why, my little one? Thou canst not know. And Father will not come; he will not come; Not once, the great spear flashing, and the tomb Riven to set thee free! Not one of all His brethren, nor the might of Ilion's wall. How shall it be? One horrible spring ... deep, deep Down. And thy neck.... Ah God, so cometh sleep!... And none to pity thee!... Thou little thing That curlest in my arms, what sweet scents cling All round thy neck! Belovèd; can it be All nothing, that this bosom cradled thee And fostered; all the weary nights, wherethrough I watched upon thy sickness, till I grew Wasted with watching? Kiss me. This one time; Not ever again. Put up thine arms, and climb About my neck: now, kiss me, lips to lips.... O, ye have found an anguish that outstrips All tortures of the East, ye gentle Greeks! Why will ye slay this innocent, that seeks No wrong?... O Helen, Helen, thou ill tree That Tyndareus planted, who shall deem of thee As child of Zeus? O, thou hast drawn thy breath From many fathers, Madness, Hate, red Death, And every rotting poison of the sky! Zeus knows thee not, thou vampire, draining dry. Greece and the world! God hate thee and destroy, That with those beautiful eyes hast blasted Troy, And made the far-famed plains a waste withal. Quick! take him: drag him: cast him from the wall, If cast ye will! Tear him, ye beasts, be swift! God hath undone me, and I cannot lift One hand, one hand, to save my child from death.... O, hide my head for shame: fling me beneath Your galleys' benches!...

[She swoons: then half-rising.

Quick: I must begone To the bridal.... I have lost my child, my own!

[The Soldiers close round her.

LEADER.

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.

MENELAUS[36].

How bright the face of heaven, and how sweet The air this day, that layeth at my feet The woman that I.... Nay: 'twas not for her I came. 'Twas for the man, the cozener And thief, that ate with me and stole away My bride. But Paris lieth, this long day, By God's grace, under the horse-hoofs of the Greek, And round him all his land. And now I seek.... Curse her! I scarce can speak the name she bears, That was my wife. Here with the prisoners They keep her, in these huts, among the hordes Of numbered slaves.--The host whose labouring swords Won her, have given her up to me, to fill My pleasure; perchance kill her, or not kill, But lead her home.--Methinks I have foregone The slaying of Helen here in Ilion.... Over the long seas I will bear her back, And there, there, cast her out to whatso wrack Of angry death they may devise, who know Their dearest dead for her in Ilion.--Ho! Ye soldiers! Up into the chambers where She croucheth! Grip the long blood-reeking hair, And drag her to mine eyes ... [Controlling himself. And when there come Fair breezes, my long ships shall bear her home. [The Soldiers go to force open the door of the second hut on the left.

HECUBA.

Thou deep Base of the World[37], and thou high Throne Above the World, whoe'er thou art, unknown And hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be, Or Reason of our Reason; God, to thee I lift my praise, seeing the silent road That bringeth justice ere the end be trod To all that breathes and dies.

MENELAUS (turning).

Ha! who is there That prayeth heaven, and in so strange a prayer?

HECUBA.

I bless thee, Menelaus, I bless thee, If thou wilt slay her! Only fear to see Her visage, lest she snare thee and thou fall! She snareth strong men's eyes; she snareth tall Cities; and fire from out her eateth up Houses. Such magic hath she, as a cup Of death!... Do I not know her? Yea, and thou, And these that lie around, do they not know? [The Soldiers return from the hut and stand aside to let HELEN pass between them. She comes through them, gentle and unafraid; there is no disorder in her raiment.

HELEN.

King Menelaus, thy first deed might make A woman fear. Into my chamber brake Thine armèd men, and lead me wrathfully. Methinks, almost, I know thou hatest me. Yet I would ask thee, what decree is gone Forth for my life or death?

MENELAUS (struggling with his emotion). There was not one That scrupled for thee. All, all with one will Gave thee to me, whom thou hast wronged, to kill!

HELEN.

And is it granted that I speak, or no, In answer to them ere I die, to show I die most wronged and innocent?

MENELAUS.

I seek To kill thee, woman; not to hear thee speak!

HECUBA.

O hear her! She must never die unheard, King Menelaus! And give me the word To speak in answer! All the wrong she wrought Away from thee, in Troy, thou knowest not. The whole tale set together is a death Too sure; she shall not 'scape thee!

MENELAUS.

'Tis but breath And time. For thy sake, Hecuba, if she need To speak, I grant the prayer. I have no heed Nor mercy--let her know it well--for her!

HELEN.

It may be that, how false or true soe'er Thou deem me, I shall win no word from thee. So sore thou holdest me thine enemy. Yet I will take what words I think thy heart Holdeth of anger: and in even part Set my wrong and thy wrong, and all that fell.

[Pointing to HECUBA.

She cometh first, who bare the seed and well Of springing sorrow, when to life she brought Paris: and that old King, who quenched not Quick in the spark, ere yet he woke to slay, The fire-brand's image[38].--But enough: a day Came, and this Paris judged beneath the trees Three Crowns of Life[39], three diverse Goddesses. The gift of Pallas was of War, to lead His East in conquering battles, and make bleed The hearths of Hellas. Hera held a Throne-- If majesties he craved--to reign alone From Phrygia to the last realm of the West. And Cypris, if he deemed her loveliest, Beyond all heaven, made dreams about my face And for her grace gave me. And, lo! her grace Was judged the fairest, and she stood above Those twain.--Thus was I loved, and thus my love Hath holpen Hellas. No fierce Eastern crown Is o'er your lands, no spear hath cast them down. O, it was well for Hellas! But for me Most ill; caught up and sold across the sea For this my beauty; yea, dishonourèd For that which else had been about my head A crown of honour.... Ah, I see thy thought; The first plain deed, 'tis that I answer not, How in the dark out of thy house I fled.... There came the Seed of Fire, this woman's seed; Came--O, a Goddess great walked with him then-- This Alexander, Breaker-down-of-Men, This Paris[40], Strength-is-with-him; whom thou, whom-- O false and light of heart--thou in thy room Didst leave, and spreadest sail for Cretan seas, Far, far from me!... And yet, how strange it is! I ask not thee; I ask my own sad thought, What was there in my heart, that I forgot My home and land and all I loved, to fly With a strange man? Surely it was not I, But Cypris, there! Lay thou thy rod on her, And be more high than Zeus and bitterer, Who o'er all other spirits hath his throne, But knows her chain must bind him. My wrong done Hath its own pardon....

One word yet thou hast, Methinks, of righteous seeming. When at last The earth for Paris oped and all was o'er, And her strange magic bound my feet no more, Why kept I still his house, why fled not I To the Argive ships?... Ah, how I strove to fly! The old Gate-Warden[41] could have told thee all, My husband, and the watchers from the wall; It was not once they took me, with the rope Tied, and this body swung in the air, to grope Its way toward thee, from that dim battlement. Ah, husband still, how shall thy hand be bent To slay me? Nay, if Right be come at last, What shalt thou bring but comfort for pains past, And harbour for a woman storm-driven: A woman borne away by violent men: And this one birthright of my beauty, this That might have been my glory, lo, it is A stamp that God hath burned, of slavery! Alas! and if thou cravest still to be As one set above gods, inviolate, 'Tis but a fruitless longing holds thee yet.

LEADER.

O Queen, think of thy children and thy land, And break her spell! The sweet soft speech, the hand And heart so fell: it maketh me afraid.

HECUBA.

Meseems her goddesses first cry mine aid Against these lying lips!... Not Hera, nay, Nor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay, To barter their own folk, Argos and brave Athens, to be trod down, the Phrygian's slave, All for vain glory and a shepherd's prize On Ida! Wherefore should great Hera's eyes So hunger to be fair? She doth not use To seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus. And maiden Pallas ... did some strange god's face Beguile her, that she craved for loveliness, Who chose from God one virgin gift above All gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love? Ah, deck not out thine own heart's evil springs By making spirits of heaven as brutish things And cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all! And Cypris must take ship-fantastical! Sail with my son and enter at the gate To seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sate At peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and all Amyclae with thee, under Ilion's wall. My son was passing beautiful, beyond His peers; and thine own heart, that saw and conned His face, became a spirit enchanting thee. For all wild things that in mortality Have being, are Aphroditê; and the name She bears in heaven is born and writ of them. Thou sawest him in gold and orient vest Shining, and lo, a fire about thy breast Leapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things, Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings Were come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled The Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold, To steep thine arms and splash the towers! How small, How cold that day was Menelaus' hall! Enough of that. It was by force my son Took thee, thou sayst, and striving.... Yet not one In Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer Rang from thy rooms that night.... Castor was there To hear thee, and his brother: both true men, Not yet among the stars! And after, when Thou camest here to Troy, and in thy track Argos and all its anguish and the rack Of war--Ah God!--perchance men told thee 'Now The Greek prevails in battle': then wouldst thou Praise Menelaus, that my son might smart, Striving with that old image in a heart Uncertain still. Then Troy had victories: And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes Watched Fortune's eyes, to follow hot where she Led first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty. Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall Far, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall! Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay, Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way Of the sword, that any woman honest-souled Had sought long since, loving her lord of old? Often and often did I charge thee; 'Go, My daughter; go thy ways. My sons will know New loves. I will give aid, and steal thee past The Argive watch. O give us peace at last, Us and our foes!' But out thy spirit cried As at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy pride In Alexander's house, and O, 'twas sweet To hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet. They were great things to thee!... And comest thou now Forth, and hast decked thy bosom and thy brow, And breathest with thy lord the same blue air, Thou evil heart? Low, low, with ravaged hair, Rent raiment, and flesh shuddering, and within-- O shame at last, not glory for thy sin; So face him if thou canst!... Lo, I have done. Be true, O King; let Hellas bear her crown Of Justice. Slay this woman, and upraise The law for evermore: she that betrays Her husband's bed, let her be judged and die.

LEADER.

Be strong, O King; give judgment worthily For thee and thy great house. Shake off thy long Reproach; not weak, but iron against the wrong!

MENELAUS.

Thy thought doth walk with mine in one intent. 'Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she went Forth to a stranger's bed. And all her fair Tale of enchantment, 'tis a thing of air!...

[Turning furiously upon HELEN.

Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yet With stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt Be paid at last. And ere this night is o'er Thy dead face shall dishonour me no more!

HELEN (kneeling before him and embracing him).

Behold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees; Lay not upon my head the phantasies Of Heaven. Remember all, and slay me not!

HECUBA.

Remember them she murdered, them that fought Beside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!

MENELAUS.

Peace, agèd woman, peace! 'Tis not for her; She is as naught to me. (To the Soldiers) ... March on before, Ye ministers, and tend her to the shore ... And have some chambered galley set for her, Where she may sail the seas.

HECUBA.

If thou be there, I charge thee, let not her set foot therein!

MENELAUS.

How? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?

HECUBA.

A lover once, will alway love again.

MENELAUS.

If that he loved be evil, he will fain Hate it!... Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done. Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own.... Thou counsellest very well.... And when we come To Argos, then ... O then some pitiless doom Well-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind Once for all time the law on womankind Of faithfulness!... 'Twill be no easy thing, God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling A chill on the dreams of women, though they be Wilder of wing and loathèd more than she!

[Exit, following HELEN, who is escorted by the Soldiers.

* * * * *

CHORUS[42].

Some Women.

[Strophe I.

And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense, And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion? The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence, The myrrh on the air and the wreathèd towers gone? And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows, The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows, And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows, The lit house most holy of the Dawn?

EURIPIDES

Others.

[Antistrophe I.

The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy, The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer: The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy, The twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear: My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high, Were they all to thee as nothing, thou thronèd in the sky, Thronèd in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die, Passeth in the wind and the flare?

A Woman.

[Strophe 2.

Dear one, O husband mine, Thou in the dim dominions Driftest with waterless lips, Unburied; and me the ships Shall bear o'er the bitter brine, Storm-birds upon angry pinions, Where the towers of the Giants[43] shine O'er Argos cloudily, And the riders ride by the sea.

Others.

And children still in the Gate Crowd and cry, A multitude desolate, Voices that float and wait As the tears run dry: 'Mother, alone on the shore They drive me, far from thee: Lo, the dip of the oar, The black hull on the sea! Is it the Isle Immortal, Salamis, waits for me? Is it the Rock that broods Over the sundered floods Of Corinth, the ancient portal Of Pelops' sovranty?'

A Woman.

[Antistrophe 2.

Out in the waste of foam, Where rideth dark Menelaus, Come to us there, O white And jagged, with wild sea-light And crashing of oar-blades, come, O thunder of God, and slay us: While our tears are wet for home, While out in the storm go we, Slaves of our enemy!

Others.

And, God, may Helen be there[44], With mirror of gold, Decking her face so fair, Girl-like; and hear, and stare, And turn death-cold: Never, ah, never more The hearth of her home to see, Nor sand of the Spartan shore, Nor tombs where her fathers be, Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling, Nor the towers of Pitanê For her face was a dark desire Upon Greece, and shame like fire, And her dead are welling, welling, From red Simoïs to the sea!

* * * * *

[TALTHYBIUS, followed by one or two Soldiers and bearing the child ASTYANAX dead, is seen approaching.

LEADER.

Ah, change on change! Yet each one racks This land with evil manifold; Unhappy wives of Troy, behold, They bear the dead Astyanax, Our prince, whom bitter Greeks this hour Have hurled to death from Ilion's tower.

TALTHYBIUS.

One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet, Lapping the wave, to gather the last freight Of Pyrrhus' spoils for Thessaly. The chief Himself long since hath parted, much in grief For Pêleus' sake, his grandsire, whom, men say, Acastus, Pelias' son, in war array Hath driven to exile. Loath enough before Was he to linger, and now goes the more In haste, bearing Andromache, his prize. 'Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes, Weeping her fatherland, as o'er the wave She gazed, and speaking words to Hector's grave. Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done For burial of this babe, thine Hector's son, That now from Ilion's tower is fallen and dead. And, lo! this great bronze-fronted shield, the dread Of many a Greek, that Hector held in fray, O never in God's name--so did she pray-- Be this borne forth to hang in Pêleus' hall Or that dark bridal chamber, that the wall May hurt her eyes; but here, in Troy o'erthrown, Instead of cedar wood and vaulted stone, Be this her child's last house.... And in thine hands She bade me lay him, to be swathed in bands Of death and garments, such as rest to thee In these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she Hath gone her ways, and, for her master's haste, May no more fold the babe unto his rest. Howbeit, so soon as he is garlanded And robed, we will heap earth above his head And lift our sails.... See all be swiftly done, As thou art bidden. I have saved thee one Labour. For as I passed Scamander's stream Hard by, I let the waters run on him, And cleansed his wounds.--See, I will go forth now And break the hard earth for his grave: so thou And I will haste together, to set free Our oars at last to beat the homeward sea!

[He goes out with his Soldiers, leaving the body of the Child in HECUBA'S arms.

HECUBA.

Set the great orb of Hector's shield to lie Here on the ground. 'Tis bitter that mine eye Should see it.... O ye Argives, was your spear Keen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fear This babe? 'Twas a strange murder for brave men! For fear this babe some day might raise again His fallen land! Had ye so little pride? While Hector fought, and thousands at his side, Ye smote us, and we perished; and now, now, When all are dead and Ilion lieth low, Ye dread this innocent! I deem it not Wisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought.... Ah, what a death hath found thee, little one! Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known Strong youth and love and all the majesty Of godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee As of one blessed ... could in any wise These days know blessedness. But now thine eyes Have seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soul No knowledge had nor usage of the whole Rich life that lapt thee round.... Poor little child! Was it our ancient wall, the circuit piled By loving Gods, so savagely hath rent Thy curls, these little flowers innocent That were thy mother's garden, where she laid Her kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayed Grins white above--Ah heaven, I will not see! Ye tender arms, the same dear mould have ye As his; how from the shoulder loose ye drop And weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hope And closed for ever! What false words ye said At daybreak, when he crept into my bed, Called me kind names, and promised: 'Grandmother, When thou art dead, I will cut close my hair And lead out all the captains to ride by Thy tomb.' Why didst thou cheat me so? 'Tis I, Old, homeless, childless, that for thee must shed Cold tears, so young, so miserably dead. Dear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet, The nursing in my lap; and O, the sweet Falling asleep together! All is gone. How should a poet carve the funeral stone To tell thy story true? 'There lieth here A babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fear Slew him.' Aye, Greece will bless the tale it tells! Child, they have left thee beggared of all else In Hector's house; but one thing shalt thou keep, This war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep. Alas, thou guardian true of Hector's fair Left arm, how art thou masterless! And there I see his handgrip printed on thy hold; And deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolled In battle from the brows and beard of him, Drop after drop, are writ about thy rim. Go, bring them--such poor garments hazardous As these days leave. God hath not granted us Wherewith to make much pride. But all I can, I give thee, Child of Troy.--O vain is man, Who glorieth in his joy and hath no fears: While to and fro the chances of the years Dance like an idiot in the wind! And none By any strength hath his own fortune won.

[During these lines several Women are seen approaching with garlands and raiment in their hands.

LEADER.

Lo these, who bear thee raiment harvested From Ilion's slain, to fold upon the dead.

[During the following scene HECUBA gradually takes the garments and wraps them about the Child.

HECUBA.

O not in pride for speeding of the car Beyond thy peers, not for the shaft of war True aimed, as Phrygians use; not any prize Of joy for thee, nor splendour in men's eyes, Thy father's mother lays these offerings About thee, from the many fragrant things That were all thine of old. But now no more. One woman, loathed of God, hath broke the door And robbed thy treasure-house, and thy warm breath Made cold, and trod thy people down to death!

CHORUS. Some Women.

Deep in the heart of me I feel thine hand, Mother: and is it he Dead here, our prince to be, And lord of the land?

HECUBA.

Glory of Phrygian raiment, which my thought Kept for thy bridal day with some far-sought Queen of the East, folds thee for evermore. And thou, grey Mother, Mother-Shield that bore

THE TROJAN WOMEN

A thousand days of glory, thy last crown Is here.... Dear Hector's shield! Thou shalt lie down Undying with the dead, and lordlier there Than all the gold Odysseus' breast can bear, The evil and the strong!

CHORUS. Some Women.

Child of the Shield-bearer, Alas, Hector's child! Great Earth, the All-mother, Taketh thee unto her With wailing wild!

Others. Mother of misery, Give Death his song!

(HEC. Woe!) Aye and bitterly

(HEC. Woe!) We too weep for thee, And the infinite wrong!

[During these lines HECUBA, kneeling by the body, has been performing a funeral rite, symbolically staunching the dead Child's wounds.

HECUBA.

I make thee whole[45]; I bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul. This wound and this I heal with linen white: O emptiness of aid!... Yet let the rite Be spoken. This and.... Nay, not I, but he, Thy father far away shall comfort thee!

[She bows her head to the ground and remains motionless and unseeing.

CHORUS.

Beat, beat thine head: Beat with the wailing chime Of hands lifted in time: Beat and bleed for the dead. Woe is me for the dead!

HECUBA.

O Women! Ye, mine own....

[She rises bewildered, as though she had seen a vision.

LEADER.

Hecuba, speak! Oh, ere thy bosom break....

HECUBA.

Lo, I have seen the open hand of God[46]; And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate, Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell And bulls' blood on the altars!... All is well. Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust Our high things low and shook our hills as dust, We had not been this splendour, and our wrong An everlasting music for the song Of earth and heaven!

Go, women: lay our dead In his low sepulchre. He hath his meed Of robing. And, methinks, but little care Toucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there Have rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we, That dream, we living and our vanity!

[The Women bear out the dead Child upon the shield, singing, when presently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of the City.

CHORUS. Some Women.

Woe for the mother that bare thee, child, Thread so frail of a hope so high, That Time hath broken: and all men smiled About thy cradle, and, passing by, Spoke of thy father's majesty. Low, low, thou liest!

Others.

Ha! Who be these on the crested rock? Fiery hands in the dusk, and a shock Of torches flung! What lingereth still, O wounded City, of unknown ill, Ere yet thou diest?

TALTHYBIUS (coming out through the ruined Wall).

Ye Captains that have charge to wreck this keep Of Priam's City, let your torches sleep No more! Up, fling the fire into her heart! Then have we done with Ilion, and may part In joy to Hellas from this evil land. And ye--so hath one word two faces--stand, Daughters of Troy, till on your ruined wall The echo of my master's trumpet call In signal breaks: then, forward to the sea, Where the long ships lie waiting.

And for thee, O ancient woman most unfortunate, Follow: Odysseus' men be here, and wait To guide thee.... 'Tis to him thou go'st for thrall.

HECUBA.

Ah, me! and is it come, the end of all, The very crest and summit of my days? I go forth from my land, and all its ways Are filled with fire! Bear me, O aged feet, A little nearer: I must gaze, and greet My poor town ere she fall.

Farewell, farewell! O thou whose breath was mighty on the swell Of orient winds, my Troy! Even thy name Shall soon be taken from thee. Lo, the flame Hath thee, and we, thy children, pass away To slavery.... God! O God of mercy!... Nay: Why call I on the Gods? They know, they know, My prayers, and would not hear them long ago. Quick, to the flames! O, in thine agony, My Troy, mine own, take me to die with thee!

[She springs toward the flames, but is seized and held by the Soldiers.

TALTHYBIUS.

Back! Thou art drunken with thy miseries, Poor woman!--Hold her fast, men, till it please Odysseus that she come. She was his lot Chosen from all and portioned. Lose her not!

[He goes to watch over the burning of the City. The dusk deepens.

CHORUS. Divers Women.

Woe, woe, woe! Thou of the Ages[47], O wherefore fleëst thou, Lord of the Phrygian, Father that made us? 'Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us? 'Tis we, thy children! Seëst thou, seëst thou?

Others.

He seëth, only his heart is pitiless; And the land dies: yea, she, She of the Mighty Cities perisheth citiless! Troy shall no more be!

Others.

Woe, woe, woe! Ilion shineth afar! Fire in the deeps thereof, Fire in the heights above, And crested walls of War!

Others. As smoke on the wing of heaven Climbeth and scattereth, Torn of the spear and driven, The land crieth for death: O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven, And the sword's angry breath!

[A new thought comes to HECUBA; she kneels and beats the earth with her hands.

HECUBA.

[Strophe.

O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O mine own, Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness lying!

LEADER.

Now hast thou found thy prayer[48], crying to them that are gone.

HECUBA.

Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your head; Hearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!

LEADER.

I, I am near thee; I kneel to thy dead to hear thee, Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear my crying!

HECUBA.

Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they bear,

LEADER. (Pain; O pain!)

HECUBA.

We go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O hear!

LEADER. (Go, and come not again!)

HECUBA.

Priam, mine own Priam, Lying so lowly, Thou in thy nothingness, Shelterless, comfortless, See'st thou the thing I am? Know'st thou my bitter stress?

LEADER.

Nay, thou art naught to him! Out of the strife there came, Out of the noise and shame, Making his eyelids dim, Death, the Most Holy! [The fire and smoke rise constantly higher.

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe. O high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth, Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and blood-red river!

LEADER.

Fall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the gentle earth.

HECUBA.

The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing; It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished thing!

LEADER.

Out on the smoke she goeth, And her name no man knoweth; And the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone for ever!

[A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in smoke and darkness.

HECUBA.

Ha! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the towers that fall!

LEADER.

All is gone!

HECUBA.

Wrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that sweepeth all,

LEADER.

And passeth on! [The Greek trumpet sounds.

HECUBA.

Farewell!--O spirit grey, Whatso is coming, Fail not from under me. Weak limbs, why tremble ye? Forth where the new long day Dawneth to slavery!

CHORUS.

Farewell from parting lips, Farewell!--Come, I and thou, Whatso may wait us now, Forth to the long Greek ships[49] And the sea's foaming.

[The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go out in the darkness.

NOTES ON THE TROJAN WOMEN

[1] Poseidon.]--In the Iliad Poseidon is the enemy of Troy, here the friend. This sort of confusion comes from the fact that the Trojans and their Greek enemies were largely of the same blood, with the same tribal gods. To the Trojans, Athena the War-Goddess was, of course, their War-Goddess, the protectress of their citadel. Poseidon, god of the sea and its merchandise, and Apollo (possibly a local shepherd god?), were their natural friends and had actually built their city wall for love of the good old king, Laomedon. Zeus, the great father, had Mount Ida for his holy hill and Troy for his peculiar city. (Cf. on p. 63.)

To suit the Greek point of view all this had to be changed or explained away. In the Iliad generally Athena is the proper War-Goddess of the Greeks. Poseidon had indeed built the wall for Laomedon, but Laomedon had cheated him of his reward--as afterwards he cheated Heracles, and the Argonauts and everybody else! So Poseidon hated Troy. Troy is chiefly defended by the barbarian Ares, the oriental Aphrodite, by its own rivers Scamander and Simois and suchlike inferior or unprincipled gods.

Yet traces of the other tradition remain. Homer knows that Athena is specially worshipped in Troy. He knows that Apollo, who had built the wall with Poseidon, and had the same experience of Laomedon, still loves the Trojans. Zeus himself, though eventually in obedience to destiny he permits the fall of the city, nevertheless has a great tenderness towards it.

[2] A steed marvellous.]--See below, on p. 36.

[3] go forth from great Ilion, &c.]--The correct ancient doctrine. When your gods forsook you, there was no more hope. Conversely, when your state became desperate, evidently your gods were forsaking you. From another point of view, also, when the city was desolate and unable to worship its gods, the gods of that city were no more.

[4] Laotian Tyndarid.]--Helen was the child of Zeus and Leda, and sister of Castor and Polydeuces; but her human father was Tyndareus, an old Spartan king. She is treated as "a prisoner and a prize," i.e., as a captured enemy, not as a Greek princess delivered from the Trojans.

[5] In secret slain.]--Because the Greeks were ashamed of the bloody deed. See below, p. 42, and the scene on this subject in the Hecuba.

[6] Cassandra.]--In the Agamemnon the story is more clearly told, that Cassandra was loved by Apollo and endowed by him with the power of prophecy; then in some way she rejected or betrayed him, and he set upon her the curse that though seeing the truth she should never be believed. The figure of Cassandra in this play is not inconsistent with that version, but it makes a different impression. She is here a dedicated virgin, and her mystic love for Apollo does not seem to have suffered any breach.

[7] Pallas.]--(See above.) The historical explanation of the Trojan Pallas and the Greek Pallas is simple enough; but as soon as the two are mythologically personified and made one, there emerges just such a bitter and ruthless goddess as Euripides, in his revolt against the current mythology, loved to depict. But it is not only the mythology that he is attacking. He seems really to feel that if there are conscious gods ruling the world, they are cruel or "inhuman" beings.

[8]--Ajax the Less, son of Oïleus, either ravished or attempted to ravish Cassandra (the story occurs in both forms) while she was clinging to the Palladium or image of Pallas. It is one of the great typical sins of the Sack of Troy, often depicted on vases.

[9] Faces of ships.]--Homeric ships had prows shaped and painted to look like birds' or beasts' heads. A ship was always a wonderfully live and vivid thing to the Greek poets. (Cf. p. 64.)

[10] Castor.]--Helen's brother: the Eurôtas, the river of her home, Sparta.

[11] Fifty seeds.]--Priam had fifty children, nineteen of them children of Hecuba (Il. vi. 451, &c.).

[12] Pirênê.]--The celebrated spring on the hill of Corinth. Drawing water was a typical employment of slaves.

[13] ff., Theseus' land, &c.]--Theseus' land is Attica. The poet, in the midst of his bitterness over the present conduct of his city, clings the more to its old fame for humanity. The "land high-born" where the Penêüs flows round the base of Mount Olympus in northern Thessaly is one of the haunts of Euripides' dreams in many plays. Cf. Bacchae, 410 (p. 97 in my translation). Mount Aetna fronts the "Tyrians' citadel," i.e.., Carthage, built by the Phoenicians. The "sister land" is the district of Sybaris in South Italy, where the river Crathis has, or had, a red-gold colour, which makes golden the hair of men and the fleeces of sheep; and the water never lost its freshness.

[14] Talthybius is a loyal soldier with every wish to be kind. But he is naturally in good spirits over the satisfactory end of the war, and his tact is not sufficient to enable him to understand the Trojan Women's feelings. Yet in the end, since he has to see and do the cruelties which his Chiefs only order from a distance, the real nature of his work forces itself upon him, and he feels and speaks at times almost like a Trojan. It is worth noticing how the Trojan Women generally avoid addressing him. (Cf. pp. 48, 67, 74.)

[15] The haunted keys (literally, "with God through them, penetrating them").]--Cassandra was his Key-bearer, holding the door of his Holy Place. (Cf. _ Hip_. 540, p. 30.)

[16] She hath a toil, &c.]--There is something true and pathetic about this curious blindness which prevents Hecuba from understanding "so plain a riddle." (Cf. below, p. 42.) She takes the watching of a Tomb to be some strange Greek custom, and does not seek to have it explained further.

[17] Odysseus.]--In Euripides generally Odysseus is the type of the successful unscrupulous man, as soldier and politician--the incarnation of what the poet most hated. In Homer of course he is totally different.

[18] Burn themselves and die.]--Women under these circumstances did commit suicide in Euripides' day, as they have ever since. It is rather curious that none of the characters of the play, not even Andromache, kills herself. The explanation must be that no such suicide was recorded in the tradition (though cf. below, on p. 33); a significant fact, suggesting that in the Homeric age, when this kind of treatment of women captives was regular, the victims did not suffer quite so terribly under it.

[19] Hymen.]--She addresses the Torch. The shadowy Marriage-god "Hymen" was a torch and a cry as much as anything more personal. As a torch he is the sign both of marriage and of death, of sunrise and of the consuming fire. The full Moon was specially connected with marriage ceremonies.

[20] Loxias.]--The name of Apollo as an Oracular God.

[21] Cassandra's visions.]--The allusions are to the various sufferings of Odysseus, as narrated in the Odyssey, and to the tragedies of the house of Atreus, as told for instance in Aeschylus' Oresteia. Agamemnon together with Cassandra, and in part because he brought Cassandra, was murdered--felled with an axe--on his return home by his wife Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Their bodies were cast into a pit among the rocks. In vengeance for this, Orestes, Agamemnon's son, committed "mother-murder," and in consequence was driven by the Erinyes (Furies) of his mother into madness and exile.

[22] This their king so wise.]--Agamemnon made the war for the sake of his brother Menelaus, and slew his daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice at Aulis, to enable the ships to sail for Troy.

[23] Hector and Paris.]--The point about Hector is clear, but as to Paris, the feeling that, after all, it was a glory that he and the half-divine Helen loved each other, is scarcely to be found anywhere else in Greek literature. (Cf., however, Isocrates' "Praise of Helen.") Paris and Helen were never idealised like Launcelot and Guinevere, or Tristram and Iseult.

[24] A wise queen.]--Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus.

[25] O Heralds, yea, Voices of Death.]--There is a play on the word for "heralds" in the Greek here, which I have evaded by a paraphrase. ([Greek: Kaer-ukes] as though from [Greek: Kaer] the death-spirit, "the one thing abhorred of all mortal men.")

Full Text (part 2)

[26] That in this place she dies.]--The death of Hecuba is connected with a certain heap of stones on the shore of the Hellespont, called Kunossêma, or "Dog's Tomb." According to one tradition (Eur. Hec. 1259 ff.) she threw herself off the ship into the sea; according to another she was stoned by the Greeks for her curses upon the fleet; but in both she is changed after death into a sort of Hell-hound. M. Victor Bérard suggests that the dog first comes into the story owing to the accidental resemblance of the (hypothetical) Semitic word S'qoulah, "Stone" or "Stoning," and the Greek Skulax, dog. The Homeric Scylla (Skulla) was also both a Stone and a Dog (Phéneciens et Odyssée, i. 213). Of course in the present passage there is no direct reference to these wild sailor-stories.

[27] The wind comes quick.]--i.e.. The storm of the Prologue. Three Powers: the three Erinyes.

[28] ff., Chorus.]--The Wooden Horse is always difficult to understand, and seems to have an obscuring effect on the language of poets who treat of it. I cannot help suspecting that the story arises from a real historical incident misunderstood. Troy, we are told, was still holding out after ten years and could not be taken, until at last by the divine suggestions of Athena, a certain Epeios devised a "Wooden Horse."

What was the "device"? According to the Odyssey and most Greek poets, it was a gigantic wooden figure of a horse. A party of heroes, led by Odysseus, got inside it and waited. The Greeks made a show of giving up the siege and sailed away, but only as far as Tenedos. The Trojans came out and found the horse, and after wondering greatly what it was meant for and what to do with it, made a breach in their walls and dragged it into the Citadel as a thank-offering to Pallas. In the night the Greeks returned; the heroes in the horse came out and opened the gates, and Troy was captured.

It seems possible that the "device" really was the building of a wooden siege-tower, as high as the walls, with a projecting and revolving neck. Such engines were (1) capable of being used at the time in Asia, as a rare and extraordinary device, because they exist on early Assyrian monuments; (2) certain to be misunderstood in Greek legendary tradition, because they were not used in Greek warfare till many centuries later. (First, perhaps, at the sieges of Perinthus and Byzantium by Philip of Macedon, 340 B.C.)

It is noteworthy that in the great picture by Polygnôtus in the Leschê at Delphi "above the wall of Troy appears the head alone of the Wooden Horse" (Paus. x. 26). Aeschylus also (Ag. 816) has some obscure phrases pointing in the same direction: "A horse's brood, a shield-bearing people, launched with a leap about the Pleiads' setting, sprang clear above the wall," &c. Euripides here treats the horse metaphorically as a sort of war-horse trampling Troy.

[29] Her that spareth not, Heaven's yokeless rider.]--Athena like a northern Valkyrie, as often in the Iliad. If one tries to imagine what Athena, the War-Goddess worshipped by the Athenian mob, was like--what a mixture of bad national passions, of superstition and statecraft, of slip-shod unimaginative idealisation--one may partly understand why Euripides made her so evil. Allegorists and high-minded philosophers might make Athena entirely noble by concentrating their minds on the beautiful elements in the tradition, and forgetting or explaining away all that was savage; he was determined to pin her down to the worst facts recorded of her, and let people worship such a being if they liked!

[30] To Artemis.]--Maidens at the shrine of Artemis are a fixed datum in the tradition. (Cf. Hec. 935 ff.)

[31] Andromache and Hecuba.]--This very beautiful scene is perhaps marred to most modern readers by an element which is merely a part of the convention of ancient mourning. Each of the mourners cries: "There is no affliction like mine!" and then proceeds to argue, as it were, against the other's counter claim. One can only say that it was, after all, what they expected of each other; and I believe the same convention exists in most places where keening or wailing is an actual practice.

[32] Even as the sound of a song.]--I have filled in some words which seem to be missing in the Greek here.

[33]Andromache.]--This character is wonderfully studied. She seems to me to be a woman who has not yet shown much character or perhaps had very intense experience, but is only waiting for sufficiently great trials to become a heroine and a saint. There is still a marked element of conventionality in her description of her life with Hector; but one feels, as she speaks, that she is already past it. Her character is built up of "Sophrosyne," of self-restraint and the love of goodness--qualities which often seem second-rate or even tiresome until they have a sufficiently great field in which to act. Very characteristic is her resolution to make the best, and not the worst, of her life in Pyrrhus' house, with all its horror of suffering and apparent degradation. So is the self-conquest by which she deliberately refrains from cursing her child's murderers, for the sake of the last poor remnant of good she can still do to him, in getting him buried. The nobility of such a character depends largely, of course, on the intensity of the feelings conquered.

It is worth noting, in this connection, that Euripides is contradicting a wide-spread tradition (Robert, Bild und Lied, pp. 63 ff.). Andromache, in the pictures of the Sack of Troy, is represented with a great pestle or some such instrument fighting with the Soldiers to rescue Astyanax ([Greek:'Andro-machae]= "Man-fighting").

Observe, too, what a climax of drama is reached by means of the very fact that Andromache, to the utmost of her power, tries to do nothing "dramatic," but only what will be best. Her character in Euripides' play, Andromache, is, on the whole, similar to this, but less developed.

[34] In Salamis, filled with the foaming, &c.]--A striking instance of the artistic value of the Greek chorus in relieving an intolerable strain. The relief provided is something much higher than what we ordinarily call "relief"; it is a stream of pure poetry and music in key with the sadness of the surrounding scene, yet, in a way, happy just because it is beautiful. (Cf. note on Hippolytus, 1. 732.)

The argument of the rather difficult lyric is: "This is not the first time Troy has been taken. Long ago Heracles made war against the old king Laomedon, because he had not given him the immortal steeds that he promised. And Telamon joined him; Telamon who might have been happy in his island of Salamis, among the bees and the pleasant waters, looking over the strait to the olive-laden hills of Athens, the beloved City! And they took ship and slew Laomedon. Yea, twice Zeus has destroyed Ilion!

(Second part.) Is it all in vain that our Trojan princes have been loved by the Gods? Ganymêdês pours the nectar of Zeus in his banquets, his face never troubled, though his motherland is burned with fire! And, to say nothing of Zeus, how can the Goddess of Morning rise and shine upon us uncaring? She loved Tithônus, son of Laomedon, and bore him up from us in a chariot to be her husband in the skies. But all that once made them love us is gone!"

[35] Pools of thy bathing.]--It is probable that Ganymêdês was himself originally a pool or a spring on Ida, now a pourer of nectar in heaven.

[36] Menelaus and Helen.]--The meeting of Menelaus and Helen after the taking of Troy was naturally one of the great moments in the heroic legend. The versions, roughly speaking, divide themselves into two. In one (Little Iliad, Ar. Lysistr. 155, Eur. Andromache 628) Menelaus is about to kill her, but as she bares her bosom to the sword, the sword falls from his hand. In the other (Stesichorus, Sack of Ilion (?)) Menelaus or some one else takes her to the ships to be stoned, and the men cannot stone her. As Quintus of Smyrna says, "They looked on her as they would on a God!"

Both versions have affected Euripides here. And his Helen has just the magic of the Helen of legend. That touch of the supernatural which belongs of right to the Child of Heaven--a mystery, a gentleness, a strange absence of fear or wrath--is felt through all her words. One forgets to think of her guilt or innocence; she is too wonderful a being to judge, too precious to destroy. This supernatural element, being the thing which, if true, separates Helen from other women, and in a way redeems her, is for that reason exactly what Hecuba denies. The controversy has a certain eternal quality about it: the hypothesis of heavenly enchantment and the hypothesis of mere bad behaviour, neither of them entirely convincing! But the very curses of those that hate her make a kind of superhuman atmosphere about Helen in this play; she fills the background like a great well-spring of pain.

This Menelaus, however, is rather different from the traditional Menelaus. Besides being the husband of Helen, he is the typical Conqueror, for whose sake the Greeks fought and to whom the central prize of the war belongs. And we take him at the height of his triumph, the very moment for which he made the war! Hence the peculiar bitterness with which he is treated, his conquest turning to ashes in his mouth, and his love a confused turmoil of hunger and hatred, contemptible and yet terrible.

The exit of the scene would leave a modern audience quite in doubt as to what happened, unless the action were much clearer than the words. But all Athenians knew from the Odyssey that the pair were swiftly reconciled, and lived happily together as King and Queen of Sparta.

[37] Thou deep base of the world.]--These lines, as a piece of religious speculation, were very famous in antiquity. And dramatically they are most important. All through the play Hecuba is a woman of remarkable intellectual power and of fearless thought. She does not definitely deny the existence of the Olympian gods, like some characters in Euripides, but she treats them as beings that have betrayed her, and whose name she scarcely deigns to speak. It is the very godlessness of Hecuba's fortitude that makes it so terrible and, properly regarded, so noble. (Cf. p. 35 "Why call on things so weak?" and p. 74 "They know, they know....") Such Gods were as a matter of fact the moral inferiors of good men, and Euripides will never blind his eyes to their inferiority. And as soon as people see that their god is bad, they tend to cease believing in his existence at all. (Hecuba's answer to Helen is not inconsistent with this, it is only less characteristic.)

Behind this Olympian system, however, there is a possibility of some real Providence or impersonal Governance of the world, to which here, for a moment, Hecuba makes a passionate approach. If there is any explanation, any justice, even in the form of mere punishment of the wicked, she will be content and give worship! But it seems that there is not. Then at last there remains--what most but not all modern freethinkers would probably have begun to doubt at the very beginning--the world of the departed, the spirits of the dead, who are true, and in their dim way love her still (p. 71 "Thy father far away shall comfort thee," and the last scene of the play).

This last religion, faint and shattered by doubt as it is, represents a return to the most primitive "Pelasgian" beliefs, a worship of the Dead which existed long before the Olympian system, and has long outlived it.

[38] The fire-brand's image.]--Hecuba, just before Paris' birth, dreamed that she gave birth to a fire-brand. The prophets therefore advised that the babe should be killed; but Priam disobeyed them.

[39] Three Crowns of Life.]--On the Judgment of Paris see Miss Harrison, Prolegomena. pp. 292 ff. Late writers degrade the story into a beauty contest between three thoroughly personal goddesses--and a contest complicated by bribery. But originally the Judgment is rather a Choice between three possible lives, like the Choice of Heracles between Work and Idleness. The elements of the choice vary in different versions: but in general Hera is royalty; Athena is prowess in war or personal merit; Aphrodite, of course, is love. And the goddesses are not really to be distinguished from the gifts they bring. They are what they give, and nothing more. Cf. the wonderful lyric Androm. 274 ff., where they come to "a young man walking to and fro alone, in an empty hut in the firelight."

There is an extraordinary effect in Helen herself being one of the Crowns of Life--a fair equivalent for the throne of the world.

[40] Alexander ... Paris.]--Two plays on words in the Greek.

[41] The old Gate-Warden.]--He and the Watchers are, of course, safely dead. But on the general lines of the tradition it may well be that Helen is speaking the truth. She loved both Menelaus and Paris; and, according to some versions, hated Dêiphobus, the Trojan prince who seized her after Paris' death. There is a reference to Dêiphobus in the MSS. of the play here, but I follow Wilamowitz in thinking it spurious.

[42] Chorus.]--On the Trojan Zeus see above, on p. 11. Mount Ida caught the rays of the rising sun in some special manner and distributed them to the rest of the world; and in this gleam of heavenly fire the God had his dwelling, which is now the brighter for the flames of his City going up like incense!

Nothing definite is known of the Golden Images and the Moon-Feasts.

[43] Towers of the Giants.]--The pre-historic castles of Tiryns and Mycênae.

[44] May Helen be there.]--(Cf. above.) Pitanê was one of the five divisions of Sparta. Athena had a "Bronzen House" on the acropolis of Sparta. Simoïs, of course, the river of Troy.

[45] I make thee whole.]--Here as elsewhere Hecuba fluctuates between fidelity to the oldest and most instinctive religion, and a rejection of all Gods.

[46] Lo, I have seen the open hand of God.]--The text is, perhaps, imperfect here; but Professor Wilamowitz agrees with me that Hecuba has seen something like a vision. The meaning of this speech is of the utmost importance. It expresses the inmost theme of the whole play, a search for an answer to the injustice of suffering in the very splendour and beauty of suffering. Of course it must be suffering of a particular kind, or, what comes to the same thing, suffering borne in a particular way; but in that case the answer seems to me to hold. One does not really think the world evil because there are martyrs or heroes in it. For them the elements of beauty which exist in any great trial of the spirit become so great as to overpower the evil that created them--to turn it from shame and misery into tragedy. Of course to most sufferers, to children and animals and weak people, or those without inspiration, the doctrine brings no help. It is a thing invented by a poet for himself.

[47] Thou of the Ages.]--The Phrygian All-Father, identified with Zeus, son of Kronos. (Cf. on p. 11.)

[48] Now hast thou found thy prayer.]--The Gods have deserted her, but she has still the dead. (Cf. above, on p. 71.)

[49] Forth to the dark Greek ships.]--Curiously like another magnificent ending of a great poem, that of the Chanson de Roland, where Charlemagne is called forth on a fresh quest:

"Deus," dist li Reis, "si penuse est ma vie!" Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret....

End of Project Gutenberg's The Trojan women of Euripides, by Euripides

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS (Translated by Gilbert Murray, 1910)

This eBook was produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS OF EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY

GILBERT MURRAY, LL.D., D. Litt.

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

PREFACE

The Iphigenia in Tauris is not in the modern sense a tragedy; it is a romantic play, beginning in a tragic atmosphere and moving through perils and escapes to a happy end. To the archaeologist the cause of this lies in the ritual on which the play is based. All Greek tragedies that we know have as their nucleus something which the Greeks called an Aition--a cause or origin. They all explain some ritual or observance or commemorate some great event. Nearly all, as a matter of fact, have for this Aition a Tomb Ritual, as, for instance, the Hippolytus has the worship paid by the Trozenian Maidens at that hero's grave. The use of this Tomb Ritual may well explain both the intense shadow of death that normally hangs over the Greek tragedies, and also perhaps the feeling of the Fatality, which is, rightly or wrongly, supposed to be prominent in them. For if you are actually engaged in commemorating your hero's funeral, it follows that all through the story, however bright his prospects may seem, you feel that he is bound to die; he cannot escape. A good many tragedies, however, are built not on Tomb Rituals but on other sacred Aitia: on the foundation of a city, like the Aetnae, the ritual of the torch- race, like the Prometheus; on some great legendary succouring of the oppressed, like the Suppliant Women of Aeschylus and Euripides. And the rite on which the Iphigenia is based is essentially one in which a man is brought to the verge of death but just does not die.

The rite is explained in 11. 1450 ff. of the play. On a certain festival at Halae in Attica a human victim was led to the altar of Artemis Tauropolos, touched on the throat with a sword and then set free: very much what happened to Orestes among the Tauri, and exactly what happened to Iphigenia at Aulis. Both legends have doubtless grown out of the same ritual.

Like all the great Greek legends, the Iphigenia myths take many varying forms. They are all of them, in their essence, conjectural restorations, by poets or other 'wise men,' of supposed early history. According to the present play, Agamemnon, when just about to sail with all the powers of Greece against Troy, was bound by weather at Aulis. The medicine-man Calchas explained that Artemis demanded the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, who was then at home with her mother, Clytemnestra. Odysseus and Agamemnon sent for the maiden on the pretext that she was to be married to the famous young hero, Achilles; she was brought to Aulis and treacherously slaughtered--or, at least, so people thought.

There is a subject for tragedy there; and it was brilliantly treated in Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, which was probably left unfinished at his death. But our play chooses a later moment of the story.

In reality Artemis at the last moment saved Iphigenia, rapt her away from mortal eyes and set her down in the land of the Tauri to be her priestess. (In Tauris is only the Latin for "among the Tauri.") These Tauri possessed an image of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and kept up a savage rite of sacrificing to it all strangers who were cast on their shores. Iphigenia, obedient to her goddess, and held by "the spell of the altar," had to consecrate the victims as they went in to be slain. So far only barbarian strangers had come: she waited half in horror, half in a rage of revenge, for the day when she should have to sacrifice a Greek. The first Greek that came was her own brother, Orestes, who had been sent by Apollo to take the image of Artemis and bear it to Attica, where it should no more be stained with human sacrifice.

If we try to turn from these myths to the historical facts that underlay them, we may conjecture that there were three goddesses of the common Aegean type, worshipped in different places. At Brauron and elsewhere there was Iphigenia ('Birth-mighty'); at Halae there was the Tauropolos ('the Bull-rider,' like Europa, who rode on the horned Moon); among the savage and scarcely known Tauri there was some goddess to whom shipwrecked strangers were sacrificed. Lastly there came in the Olympian Artemis. Now all these goddesses (except possibly the Taurian, of whom we know little) were associated with the Moon and with child-birth, and with rites for sacrificing or redeeming the first-born. Naturally enough, therefore, they were all gradually absorbed by the prevailing worship of Artemis. Tauropolis became an epithet of Artemis, Iphigenia became her priestess and 'Keybearer.' And the word 'Tauropolis,' which had become obscure, was explained as a reference to the Tauri. The old rude image of Tauropolis had come from the Tauri, and the strange ritual was descended from their bloody rites. So the Taurian goddess must be Artemis too. The tendency of ancient polytheism, when it met with some alien religion, was not to treat the alien gods as entirely new persons, but assuming the real and obvious existence of their own gods, to inquire by what names and with what ritual the strangers worshipped them.

As usual in Euripides, the central character of this play is a woman, and a woman most unsparingly yet lovingly studied. Iphigenia is no mere 'sympathetic heroine.' She is a worthy member of her great but sinister house; a haggard and exiled woman, eating out her heart in two conflicting emotions: intense longing for home and all that she had loved in childhood, and bitter self- pitying rage against 'her murderers.' The altar of Aulis is constantly in her thoughts. She does not know whether to hate her father, but at least she can with a clear conscience hate all the rest of those implicated, Calchas, Odysseus, Menelaus, and most fiercely, though somewhat unjustly, Helen. All the good women in Euripides go wild at the name of Helen. Iphigenia broods on her wrongs till she can see nothing else; she feels as if she hated all Greeks, and lived only for revenge, for the hope of some day slaughtering Greeks at her altar, as pitilessly as they slaughtered her at Aulis. She knows how horrible this state of mind is, but she is now "turned to stone, and has no pity left in her." Then the Greeks come; and even before she knows who they really are, the hard shell of her bitterness slowly yields. Her heart goes out to them; she draws Orestes against his will into talk; she insists on pitying him, insists on his pitying her; and eventually determines, come what may, that she will save at least the one stranger that she has talked with most. Presently comes the discovery who the strangers are; and she is at once ready to die with them or for them.

As for the scene in which Iphigenia befools Thoas, my moral feelings may be obtuse, but I certainly cannot feel the slightest compunction or shock at the heavy lying. Which of us would not expect at least as much from his own sister, if it lay with her to save him from the altars of Benin or Ashanti? I suspect that the good people who lament over "the low standard of truthfulness shown by even the most enlightened pagans" have either forgotten the days when they read stories of adventure, or else have not, in reading this scene, realised properly the strain of hairbreadth peril that lies behind the comedy of it. A single slip in Iphigenia's tissue of desperate improvisations would mean death, and not to herself alone. One feels rather sorry for Thoas, certainly, and he is a very fine fellow in his way; but a person who insists on slaughtering strangers cannot expect those strangers or their friends to treat him with any approach to candour.

The two young men come nearer to mere ideal heroes de roman than any other characters in Euripides. They are surprisingly handsome and brave and unselfish and everything that they should be; and they stand out like heroes against the mob of cowardly little Taurians in the Herdsman's speech. Yet they have none of the unreality that is usual in such figures. The shadow of madness and guilt hanging over Orestes makes a difference. At his first entrance, when danger is still far off, he is a mass of broken nerves; he depends absolutely on Pylades. In the later scenes, when they are face to face with death, the underlying strength of the son of the Great King asserts itself and makes one understand why, for all his madness, Orestes is the chief, and Pylades only the devoted follower.

Romantic plays with happy endings are almost of necessity inferior in artistic value to true tragedies. Not, one would hope, simply because they end happily; happiness in itself is certainly not less beautiful than grief; but because a tragedy in its great moments can generally afford to be sincere, while romantic plays live in an atmosphere of ingenuity and make-believe. The Iphigenia is not of the same order as The Trojan Women. Yet it is a delightful play; subtle, ever-changing, full of movement and poignancy. The recognition scene became to Aristotle a model of what such a scene should be; and the long passage before it, from the entrance of the two princes onward, seems to me one of the most skilful and fascinating in Greek drama.

And after all the adventure of Euripides is not quite like that of the average romantic writer. It is shot through by reflection, by reality and by sadness. There is a shadow that broods over the Iphigenia, though it is not the shadow of death. It is exile, homesickness. Iphigenia, Orestes, the Women of the Chorus, are all exiles, all away from their heart's home, among savage people and cruel gods. They wait on the shore while the sea-birds take wing for Hellas, out beyond the barrier of the Dark-Blue Rocks and the great stretches of magical and 'unfriended' sea. Nearly all the lyrics are full of sea-light and the clash of waters, and the lyrics are usually the very soul of Euripidean tragedy.

G. M.

CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

IPHIGENIA, eldest daughter of Agamemnon, King of Argos; supposed to have been sacrificed by him to Artemis at Aulis.

ORESTES, her brother; pursued by Furies for killing his mother, Clytemnestra, who had murdered Agamemnon.

PYLADES, Prince of Phocis, friend to Orestes.

THOAS, King of Tauris, a savage country beyond the Symplegades.

A HERDSMAN.

A MESSENGER.

CHORUS of Captive Greek Women, handmaids to Iphigenia.

The Goddess PALLAS ATHENA.

The play was first performed between the years 414 and 412 B.C.

THE IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

[The Scene shows a great and barbaric Temple on a desolate sea-coast. An altar is visible stained with blood. There are spoils of slain men hanging from the roof. IPHIGENIA, in the dress of a Priestess, comes out from the Temple.]

IPHIGENIA.

Child of the man of torment and of pride Tantalid Pelops bore a royal bride On flying steeds from Pisa. Thence did spring Atreus: from Atreus, linked king with king, Menelaus, Agamemnon. His am I And Clytemnestra's child: whom cruelly At Aulis, where the strait of shifting blue Frets with quick winds, for Helen's sake he slew, Or thinks to have slain; such sacrifice he swore To Artemis on that deep-bosomed shore. For there Lord Agamemnon, hot with joy To win for Greece the crown of conquered Troy, For Menelaus' sake through all distress Pursuing Helen's vanished loveliness, Gathered his thousand ships from every coast Of Hellas: when there fell on that great host Storms and despair of sailing. Then the King Sought signs of fire, and Calchas answering

Spake thus: "O Lord of Hellas, from this shore No ship of thine may move for evermore, Till Artemis receive in gift of blood Thy child, Iphigenia. Long hath stood Thy vow, to pay to Her that bringeth light Whatever birth most fair by day or night The year should bring. That year thy queen did bear A child--whom here I name of all most fair. See that she die."

So from my mother's side By lies Odysseus won me, to be bride In Aulis to Achilles. When I came, They took me and above the altar flame Held, and the sword was swinging to the gash, When, lo, out of their vision in a flash Artemis rapt me, leaving in my place A deer to bleed; and on through a great space Of shining sky upbore and in this town Of Tauris the Unfriended set me down; Where o'er a savage people savagely King Thoas rules. This is her sanctuary And I her priestess. Therefore, by the rite Of worship here, wherein she hath delight-- Though fair in naught but name. ... But Artemis Is near; I speak no further. Mine it is To consecrate and touch the victim's hair; Doings of blood unspoken are the care Of others, where her inmost chambers lie. Ah me! But what dark dreams, thou clear and morning sky, I have to tell thee, can that bring them ease! Meseemed in sleep, far over distant seas, I lay in Argos, and about me slept My maids: and, lo, the level earth was swept With quaking like the sea. Out, out I fled, And, turning, saw the cornice overhead Reel, and the beams and mighty door-trees down In blocks of ruin round me overthrown. One single oaken pillar, so I dreamed, Stood of my father's house; and hair, meseemed, Waved from its head all brown: and suddenly A human voice it had, and spoke. And I, Fulfilling this mine office, built on blood Of unknown men, before that pillar stood, And washed him clean for death, mine eyes astream With weeping.

And this way I read my dream. Orestes is no more: on him did fall My cleansing drops.--The pillar of the hall Must be the man first-born; and they, on whom My cleansing falls, their way is to the tomb. Therefore to my dead brother will I pour Such sacrifice, I on this bitter shore And he beyond great seas, as still I may, With all those maids whom Thoas bore away In war from Greece and gave me for mine own. But wherefore come they not? I must be gone And wait them in the temple, where I dwell.

[She goes into the Temple.]

VOICE. Did some one cross the pathway? Guard thee well.

ANOTHER VOICE. I am watching. Every side I turn mine eye.

(Enter ORESTES and PYLADES. Their dress shows fhey are travellers ORESTES is shaken and distraught.)

ORESTES. How, brother? And is this the sanctuary At last, for which we sailed from Argolis?

PYLADES. For sure, Orestes. Seest thou not it is?

ORESTES. The altar, too, where Hellene blood is shed.

PYLADES. How like long hair those blood-stains, tawny red!

ORESTES. And spoils of slaughtered men--there by the thatch.

PYLADES. Aye, first-fruits of the harvest, when they catch Their strangers!--'Tis a place to search with care

[He searches, while ORESTES sits.]

ORESTES. O God, where hast thou brought me? What new snare Is this?--I slew my mother; I avenged My father at thy bidding; I have ranged A homeless world, hunted by shapes of pain, And circling trod in mine own steps again. At last I stood once more before thy throne And cried thee question, what thing should be done To end these miseries, wherein I reel Through Hellas, mad, lashed like a burning wheel; And thou didst bid me seek ... what land but this Of Tauri, where thy sister Artemis Her altar hath, and seize on that divine Image which fell, men say, into this shrine From heaven. This I must seize by chance or plot Or peril--clearer word was uttered not-- And bear to Attic earth. If this be done, I should have peace from all my malison.

Lo, I have done thy will. I have pierced the seas Where no Greek man may live.--Ho, Pylades, Sole sharer of my quest: hast seen it all? What can we next? Thou seest this circuit wall Enormous? Must we climb the public stair, With all men watching? Shall we seek somewhere Some lock to pick, some secret bolt or bar-- Of all which we know nothing? Where we are, If one man mark us, if they see us prize The gate, or think of entrance anywise, 'Tis death.--We still have time to fly for home: Back to the galley quick, ere worse things come!

PYLADES. To fly we dare not, brother. 'Twere a thing Not of our custom; and ill work, to bring God's word to such reviling.--Let us leave The temple now, and gather in some cave Where glooms the cool sea ripple. But not where The ship lies; men might chance to see her there And tell some chief; then certain were our doom. But when the fringed eye of Night be come Then we must dare, by all ways foul or fine, To thieve that wondrous Image from its shrine. Ah, see; far up, between each pair of beams A hollow one might creep through! Danger gleams Like sunshine to a brave man's eyes, and fear Of what may be is no help anywhere.

ORESTES. Aye; we have never braved these leagues of way To falter at the end. See, I obey Thy words. They are ever wise. Let us go mark Some cavern, to lie hid till fall of dark. God will not suffer that bad things be stirred To mar us now, and bring to naught the word Himself hath spoke. Aye, and no peril brings Pardon for turning back to sons of kings.

[They go out towards the shore. After they are gone, enter gradually the WOMEN]

OF THE CHORUS.

CHORUS. Peace! Peace upon all who dwell By the Sister Rocks that clash in the swell Of the Friendless Seas.

O Child of Leto, thou, Dictynna mountain-born, To the cornice gold-inlaid To the pillared sanctities, We come in the cold of morn, We come with virgin brow, Pure as our oath was sworn, Handmaids of thine handmaid Who holdeth the stainless keys,

From Hellas, that once was ours, We come before thy gate, From the land of the western seas, The horses and the towers, The wells and the garden trees, And the seats where our fathers sate.

LEADER. What tidings, ho? With what intent Hast called me to thy shrine and thee, O child of him who crossed the sea To Troy with that great armament, The thousand prows, the myriad swords? I come, O child of Atreid Lords.

[IPHIGENIA, followed by ATTENDANTS, comes from the Temple.]

IPHIGENIA. Alas, O maidens mine, I am filled full of tears: My heart filled with the beat Of tears, as of dancing feet, A lyreless joyless line, And music meet for the dead.

For a whisper is in mine ears, By visions borne on the breath Of the Night that now is fled, Of a brother gone to death. Oh sorrow and weeping sore, For the house that no more is, For the dead that were kings of yore And the labour of Argolis!

[She begins the Funeral Rite.]

O Spirit, thou unknown, Who bearest on dark wings My brother, my one, mine own, I bear drink-offerings, And the cup that bringeth ease Flowing through Earth's deep breast; Milk of the mountain kine, The hallowed gleam of wine, The toil of murmuring bees: By these shall the dead have rest.

To an ATTENDANT.

The golden goblet let me pour, And that which Hades thirsteth for.

O branch of Agamemnon's tree Beneath the earth, as to one dead, This cup of love I pour to thee. Oh, pardon, that I may not shed

One lock of hair to wreathe thy tomb, One tear: so far, so far am I From what to me and thee was home, And where in all men's fantasy, Butchered, O God! I also lie.

CHORUS.

Woe; woe: I too with refluent melody, An echo wild of the dirges of the Asian, I, thy bond maiden, cry to answer thee: The music that lieth hid in lamentation, The song that is heard in the deep hearts of the dead, That the Lord of dead men 'mid his dancing singeth, And never joy-cry, never joy it bringeth; Woe for the house of Kings in desolation, Woe for the light of the sceptre vanished.

From kings in Argos of old, from joyous kings, The beginning came: Then peril swift upon peril, flame on flame: The dark and wheeling coursers, as wild with wings, The cry of one betrayed on a drowning shore, The sun that blanched in heaven, the world that changed-- Evil on evil and none alone!--deranged By the Golden Lamb and the wrong grown ever more; Blood following blood, sorrow on sorrow sore! So come the dead of old, the dead in wrath, Back on the seed of the high Tantalidae; Surely the Spirit of Life an evil path Hath hewed for thee. IPHIGENIA. From the beginning the Spirit of my life Was an evil spirit. Alas for my mother's zone, And the night that bare me! From the beginning Strife, As a book to read, Fate gave me for mine own. They wooed a bride for the strikers down of Troy-- Thy first-born, Mother: was it for this, thy prayer?-- A hind of slaughter to die in a father's snare, Gift of a sacrifice where none hath joy.

They set me on a royal wane; Down the long sand they led me on, A bride new-decked, a bride of bane, In Aulis to the Nereid's son. And now estranged for evermore Beyond the far estranging foam I watch a flat and herbless shore, Unloved, unchilded, without home Or city: never more to meet For Hera's dance with Argive maids, Nor round the loom 'mid singing sweet Make broideries and storied braids, Of writhing giants overthrown And clear-eyed Pallas ... All is gone! Red hands and ever-ringing ears: The blood of men that friendless die, The horror of the strangers' cry Unheard, the horror of their tears.

But now, let even that have rest: I weep for him in Argos slain, The brother whom I knew, Ah me, A babe, a flower; and yet to be-- There on his mother's arms and breast-- The crowned Orestes, lord of men!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS. Stay, yonder from some headland of the sea There comes--methinks a herdsman, seeking thee.

(Enter a HERDSMAN. IPHIGENIA is still on her knees.)

HERDSMAN. Daughter of Clytemnestra and her king, Give ear! I bear news of a wondrous thing.

IPHIGENIA. What news, that should so mar my obsequies?

HERDSMAN. A ship hath passed the blue Symplegades, And here upon our coast two men are thrown, Young, bold, good slaughter for the altar-stone Of Artemis!

[SHE RISES.]

Make all the speed ye may; 'Tis not too much. The blood-bowl and the spray!

IPHIGENIA. Men of what nation? Doth their habit show?

HERDSMAN. Hellenes for sure, but that is all we know.

IPHIGENIA. No name? No other clue thine ear could seize?

HERDSMAN. We heard one call his comrade "Pylades."

IPHIGENIA. Yes. And the man who spoke--his name was what?

HERDSMAN. None of us heard. I think they spoke it not.

IPHIGENIA. How did ye see them first, how make them fast?

HERDSMAN. Down by the sea, just where the surge is cast ...

IPHIGENIA. The sea? What is the sea to thee and thine?

HERDSMAN. We came to wash our cattle in the brine.

IPHIGENIA. Go back, and tell how they were taken; show The fashion of it, for I fain would know All.--'Tis so long a time, and never yet, Never, hath Greek blood made this altar wet.

HERDSMAN. We had brought our forest cattle where the seas Break in long tides from the Symplegades. A bay is there, deep eaten by the surge And hollowed clear, with cover by the verge Where purple-fishers camp. These twain were there When one of mine own men, a forager, Spied them, and tiptoed whispering back: "God save Us now! Two things unearthly by the wave Sitting!" We looked, and one of pious mood Raised up his hands to heaven and praying stood: "Son of the white Sea Spirit, high in rule, Storm-lord Palaemon, Oh, be merciful: Or sit ye there the warrior twins of Zeus, Or something loved of Him, from whose great thews Was-born the Nereids' fifty-fluted choir." Another, flushed with folly and the fire Of lawless daring, laughed aloud and swore 'Twas shipwrecked sailors skulking on the shore, Our rule and custom here being known, to slay All strangers. And most thought this was the way To follow, and seek out for Artemis The blood-gift of our people.

Just at this One of the strangers started from his seat, And stood, and upward, downward, with a beat His head went, and he groaned, and all his arm Trembled. Then, as a hunter gives alarm, He shrieked, stark mad and raving: "Pylades, Dost see her there?--And there--Oh, no one sees!-- A she-dragon of Hell, and all her head Agape with fanged asps, to bite me dead. She hath no face, but somewhere from her cloak Bloweth a wind of fire and bloody smoke: The wings' beat fans it: in her arms, Ah see! My mother, dead grey stone, to cast on me And crush ... Help, help! They crowd on me behind ..."

No shapes at all were there. 'Twas his sick mind Which turned the herds that lowed and barking hounds That followed, to some visionary sounds Of Furies. For ourselves, we did but sit And watch in silence, wondering if the fit Would leave him dead. When suddenly out shone His sword, and like a lion he leaped upon Our herds, to fight his Furies! Flank and side He stabbed and smote them, till the foam was dyed Red at the waves' edge. Marry, when we saw The cattle hurt and falling, no more law We gave, but sprang to arms and blew the horn For help--so strong they looked and nobly born For thralls like us to meet, that pair unknown.

Well, a throng gathered ere much time was gone; When suddenly the whirl of madness slips From off him and he falls, quite weak, his lips Dropping with foam. When once we saw him fall So timely, we were at him one and all To pelt and smite. The other watched us come, But knelt and wiped those lips all dank with foam And tended the sick body, while he held His cloak's good web above him for a shield; So cool he was to ward off every stone And all the while care for that stricken one.

Then rose the fallen man, calm now and grave, Looked, and saw battle bursting like a wave That bursts, and knew that peril close at hand Which now is come, and groaned. On every hand We stood, and stoned and stoned, and ceased not. Aye, 'Twas then we heard that fearful battle-cry: "Ho, Pylades, 'tis death! But let it be A gallant death! Draw sword and follow me."

When those two swords came flashing, up the glen Through the loose rocks we scattered back; but when One band was flying, down by rocks and trees Came others pelting: did they turn on these, Back stole the first upon them, stone on stone. 'Twas past belief: of all those shots not one Struck home. The goddess kept her fated prey Perfect. Howbeit, at last we made our way Right, left and round behind them on the sands, And rushed, and beat the swords out of their hands, So tired they scarce could stand. Then to the king We bore them both, and he, not tarrying, Sends them to thee, to touch with holy spray-- And then the blood-bowl!

I have heard thee pray, Priestess, ere now for such a draft as this. Aye, slay but these two chiefs to Artemis And Hellas shall have paid thy debt, and know What blood was spilt in Aulis long ago.

LEADER. I marvel that one mad, whoe'er he be, Should sail from Hellas to the Friendless Sea.

IPHIGENIA. 'Tis well. Let thy hand bring them, and mine own Shall falter not till here God's will be done.

[EXIT HERDSMAN.]

O suffering heart, not fierce thou wast of old To shipwrecked men. Nay, pities manifold Held thee in fancy homeward, lest thy hand At last should fall on one of thine own land. But now, for visions that have turned to stone My heart, to know Orestes sees the sun No more, a cruel woman waits you here, Whoe'er ye be, and one without a tear. 'Tis true: I know by mine own evil will: One long in pain, if things more suffering still Fall to his hand, will hate them for his own Torment ... And no great wind hath ever blown, No ship from God hath passed the Clashing Gate, To bring me Helen, who hath earned my hate, And Menelaus, till I mocked their prayers In this new Aulis, that is mine, not theirs: Where Greek hands held me lifted, like a beast For slaughter, and my throat bled. And the priest My father! ... Not one pang have I forgot. Ah me, the blind half-prisoned arms I shot This way and that, to find his beard, his knees, Groping and wondering: "Father, what are these For bridal rites? My mother even now Mid Argive women sings for me, whom thou ... What dost thou? She sings happy songs, and all Is dance and sound of piping in the hall; And here ... Is he a vampyre, is he one That fattens on the dead, thy Peleus' son-- Whose passion shaken like a torch before My leaping chariot, lured me to this shore To wed--" Ah me! And I had hid my face, Burning, behind my veil. I would not press Orestes to my arms ... who now is slain! ... I would not kiss my sister's lips again, For shame and fulness of the heart to meet My bridegroom. All my kisses, all my sweet Words were stored up and hid: I should come back So soon to Argos! And thou, too: alack, Brother, if dead thou art, from what high things Thy youth is outcast, and the pride of kings Fallen! And this the goddess deemeth good! If ever mortal hand be dark with blood; Nay, touch a new-made mother or one slain In war, her ban is on him. 'Tis a stain She driveth from her outer walls; and then Herself doth drink this blood of slaughtered men? Could ever Leto, she of the great King Beloved, be mother to so gross a thing? These tales be lies, false as those feastings wild Of Tantalus and Gods that tore a child. This land of murderers to its god hath given Its own lust; evil dwelleth not in heaven.

[SHE GOES INTO THE TEMPLE.]

CHORUS.

Dark of the sea, dark of the sea, [STROPHE 1.] Gates of the warring water, One, in the old time, conquered you, A winged passion that burst the blue, When the West was shut and the Dawn lay free To the pain of Inachus' daughter. But who be these, from where the rushes blow On pale Eurotas, from pure Dirce's flow, That turn not neither falter, Seeking Her land, where no man breaketh bread, Her without pity, round whose virgin head Blood on the pillars rusts from long ago, Blood on the ancient altar. [ANTISTROPHE 1.] A flash of the foam, a flash of the foam, A wave on the oarblade welling, And out they passed to the heart of the blue: A chariot shell that the wild winds drew. Is it for passion of gold they come, Or pride to make great their dwelling?

For sweet is Hope, yea, to much mortal woe So sweet that none may turn from it nor go, Whom once the far voice calleth, To wander through fierce peoples and the gleam Of desolate seas, in every heart a dream: And these she maketh empty die, and, lo, To that man's hand she falleth.

[STROPHE 2.]

Through the Clashing Rocks they burst: They passed by the Cape unsleeping Of Phineus' sons accurst: They ran by the star-lit bay Upon magic surges sweeping, Where folk on the waves astray Have seen, through the gleaming grey, Ring behind ring, men say, The dance of the old Sea's daughters.

The guiding oar abaft It rippled and it dinned, And now the west wind laughed And now the south-west wind; And the sail was full in flight, And they passed by the Island White:

Birds, birds, everywhere, White as the foam, light as the air; And ghostly Achilles raceth there, Far in the Friendless Waters. [ANTISTROPHE 1.] Ah, would that Leda's child ... (So prayeth the priestess maiden) From Troy, that she beguiled, Hither were borne, to know What sin on her soul is laden! Hair twisted, throat held low, Head back for the blood to flow, To die by the sword. ... Ah no! One hope my soul yet hideth.

A sail, a sail from Greece, Fearless to cross the sea, With ransom and with peace To my sick captivity. O home, to see thee still, And the old walls on the hill!

Dreams, dreams, gather to me! Bear me on wings over the sea; O joy of the night, to slave and free, One good thing that abideth!

LEADER. But lo, the twain whom Thoas sends, Their arms in bondage grasped sore; Strange offering this, to lay before The Goddess! Hold your peace, O friends.

Onward, still onward, to this shrine They lead the first-fruits of the Greek. 'Twas true, the tale he came to speak, That watcher of the mountain kine.

O holy one, if it afford Thee joy, what these men bring to thee, Take thou their sacrifice, which we, By law of Hellas, hold abhorred.

[Enter ORESTES and PYLADES, bound, and guarded by taurians. re-enter IPHIGENIA.]

IPHIGENIA. So be it. My foremost care must be that nothing harms The temple's holy rule.--Untie their arms. That which is hallowed may no more be bound. You, to the shrine within! Let all be found As the law bids, and as we need this day.

[ORESTES and PYLADES are set free; some ATTENDANTS go into the temple.]

Ah me! What mother then was yours, O strangers, say, And father? And your sister, if you have A sister: both at once, so young and brave To leave her brotherless! Who knows when heaven May send that fortune? For to none is given To know the coming nor the end of woe; So dark is God, and to great darkness go His paths, by blind chance mazed from our ken. Whence are ye come, O most unhappy men? From some far home, methinks, ye have found this shore And far shall stay from home for evermore.

ORESTES. Why weepest thou, woman, to make worse the smart Of that which needs must be, whoe'er thou art? I count it not for gentleness, when one Who means to slay, seeks first to make undone By pity that sharp dread. Nor praise I him, With hope long dead, who sheddeth tears to dim The pain that grips him close. The evil so Is doubled into twain. He doth but show His feeble heart, and, as he must have died, Dies.--Let ill fortune float upon her tide And weep no more for us. What way this land Worships its god we know and understand.

IPHIGENIA. Say first ... which is it men call Pylades?

ORESTES. 'Tis this man's name, if that will give thee ease.

IPHIGENIA. From what walled town of Hellas cometh he?

ORESTES. Enough!--How would the knowledge profit thee?

IPHIGENIA. Are ye two brethren of one mother born?

ORESTES. No, not in blood. In love we are brothers sworn.

IPHIGENIA. Thou also hast a name: tell me thereof.

ORESTES. Call me Unfortunate. 'Tis name enough.

IPHIGENIA. I asked not that. Let that with Fortune lie.

ORESTES. Fools cannot laugh at them that nameless die.

IPHIGENIA. Why grudge me this? Hast thou such mighty fame?

ORESTES. My body, if thou wilt, but not my name.

IPHIGENIA. Nor yet the land of Greece where thou wast bred?

ORESTES. What gain to have told it thee, when I am dead?

IPHIGENIA. Nay: why shouldst thou deny so small a grace?

ORESTES. Know then, great Argos was my native place.

IPHIGENIA. Stranger! The truth! ... From Argos art thou come?

ORESTES. Mycenae, once a rich land, was my home.

IPHIGENIA. 'Tis banishment that brings thee here--or what?

ORESTES. A kind of banishment, half forced, half sought.

IPHIGENIA. Wouldst thou but tell me all I need of thee!

ORESTES. 'Twere not much added to my misery.

IPHIGENIA. From Argos! ... Oh, how sweet to see thee here!

ORESTES. Enjoy it, then. To me 'tis sorry cheer.

IPHIGENIA. Thou knowest the name of Troy? Far doth it flit.

ORESTES. Would God I had not; nay, nor dreamed of it.

IPHIGENIA. Men fable it is fallen beneath the sword?

ORESTES. Fallen it is. Thou hast heard no idle word.

IPHIGENIA. Fallen! At last!--And Helen taken too?

ORESTES. Aye; on an evil day for one I knew.

IPHIGENIA. Where is she? I too have some anger stored ...

ORESTES. In Sparta! Once more happy with her lord!

IPHIGENIA. Oh. hated of all Greece, not only me!

ORESTES. I too have tasted of her wizardry.

IPHIGENIA. And came the armies home, as the tales run?

ORESTES. To answer that were many tales in one.

IPHIGENIA. Oh, give me this hour full! Thou wilt soon die.

ORESTES. Ask, if such longing holds thee. I will try.

IPHIGENIA. A seer called Calchas! Did he ever come ...?

ORESTES.

Calchas is dead, as the news went at home.

IPHIGENIA.

Good news, ye gods!--Odysseus, what of him?

ORESTES.

Not home yet, but still living, as men deem.

IPHIGENIA.

Curse him! And may he see his home no more.

ORESTES.

Why curse him? All his house is stricken sore.

IPHIGENIA.

How hath the Nereid's son, Achilles, sped?

ORESTES.

Small help his bridal brought him! He is dead.

IPHIGENIA.

A fierce bridal, so the sufferers tell!

ORESTES.

Who art thou, questioning of Greece so well?

IPHIGENIA.

I was Greek. Evil caught me long ago.

ORESTES. Small wonder, then, thou hast such wish to know.

IPHIGENIA. That war-lord, whom they call so high in bliss...

ORESTES. None such is known to me. What name was his?

IPHIGENIA. They called him Agamemnon, Atreus' son.

ORESTES. I know not. Cease.--My questioning is done.

IPHIGENIA. 'Twill be such joy to me! How fares he? Tell!

ORESTES. Dead. And hath wrecked another's life as well.

IPHIGENIA. Dead? By what dreadful fortune? Woe is me!

ORESTES. Why sighst thou? Had he any link with thee?

IPHIGENIA. I did but think of his old joy and pride.

ORESTES. His own wife foully stabbed him, and he died.

IPHIGENIA. O God! I pity her that slew ... and him that slew.

ORESTES. Now cease thy questions. Add no word thereto.

IPHIGENIA. But one word. Lives she still, that hapless wife?

ORESTES. No. Her own son, her first-born, took her life.

IPHIGENIA. O shipwrecked house! What thought was in his brain?

ORESTES. Justice on her, to avenge his father slain.

IPHIGENIA. Alas! A bad false duty bravely hath he wrought.

ORESTES. Yet God, for all his duty, helps him not.

IPHIGENIA. And not one branch of Atreus' tree lives on?

ORESTES. Electra lives, unmated and alone.

IPHIGENIA. The child they slaughtered ... is there word of her?

ORESTES. Why, no, save that she died in Aulis there.

IPHIGENIA. Poor child! Poor father, too, who killed and lied!

ORESTES. For a bad woman's worthless sake she died.

IPHIGENIA. The dead king's son, lives he in Argos still?

ORESTES. He lives, now here, now nowhere, bent with ill.

IPHIGENIA. O dreams, light dreams, farewell! Ye too were lies.

ORESTES. Aye; the gods too, whom mortals deem so wise, Are nothing clearer than some winged dream; And all their ways, like man's ways, but a stream Of turmoil. He who cares to suffer least, Not blind, as fools are blinded, by a priest, Goes straight... to what death, those who know him know.

LEADER. We too have kinsmen dear, but, being low, None heedeth, live they still or live they not.

IPHIGENIA (WITH SUDDEN IMPULSE). Listen! For I am fallen upon a thought, Strangers, of some good use to you and me, Both. And 'tis thus most good things come to be, When different eyes hold the same for fair.

Stranger, if I can save thee, wilt thou bear To Argos and the friends who loved my youth Some word? There is a tablet which, in truth For me and mine ill works, a prisoner wrote, Ta'en by the king in war. He knew 'twas not My will that craved for blood, but One on high Who holds it righteous her due prey shall die. And since that day no Greek hath ever come Whom I could save and send to Argos home With prayer for help to any friend: but thou, I think, dost loathe me not; and thou dost know Mycenae and the names that fill my heart. Help me! Be saved! Thou also hast thy part, Sending Completed Page, Please Wait ...

IPHIGENIA. 'Tis I. This altar's spell is over me.

ORESTES. A grievous office and unblest, O maid.

IPHIGENIA. What dare I do? The law must be obeyed.

ORESTES. A girl to hold a sword and stab men dead!

IPHIGENIA. I shall but sign the water on thy head.

ORESTES. And who shall strike me, if I needs must ask?

IPHIGENIA. There be within these vaults who know their task.

ORESTES. My grave, when they have finished their desire?

IPHIGENIA. A great gulf of the rock, and holy fire.

ORESTES. Woe's me! Would that my sister's hand could close mine eyes!

IPHIGENIA. Alas, she dwelleth under distant skies, Unhappy one, and vain is all thy prayer. Yet, Oh, them art from Argos: all of care That can be, I will give and fail thee not. Rich raiment to thy burial shall be brought, And oil to cool thy pyre in golden floods, And sweet that from a thousand mountain buds The murmuring bee hath garnered, I will throw To die with thee in fragrance. ... I must go And seek the tablet from the Goddess' room Within.--Oh, do not hate me for my doom!

Watch them, ye servitors, but leave them free.

It may be, past all hoping, it may be, My word shall sail to Argos, to his hand Whom most I love. How joyous will he stand To know, past hope, that here on the world's rim His dead are living, and cry out for him!

[She goes into the Temple.]

CHORUS. Alas, we pity thee; surely we pity thee: [Strophe.] Who art given over to the holy water, The drops that fall deadly as drops of blood.

ORESTES. I weep not, ye Greek maidens: but farewell.

CHORUS.

[ANTISTROPHE.]

Aye, and rejoice with thee; surely rejoice with thee, Thou happy rover from the place of slaughter; Thy foot shall stand again where thy father's stood.

PYLADES. While he I love must die? 'Tis miserable.

DIVERS WOMEN OF THE CHORUS. A. Alas, the deathward faring of the lost! B. Woe, woe; thou too shalt move to misery. C Which one shall suffer most? D. My heart is torn by two words evenly, For thee should I most sorrow, or for thee?

ORESTES. By heaven, is THY thought, Pylades, like mine?

PYLADES. O friend, I cannot speak.--But what is thine?

ORESTES. Who can the damsel be? How Greek her tone Of question, all of Ilion overthrown, And how the kings came back, the wizard flame Of Calchas, and Achilles' mighty name, And ill-starred Agamemnon. With a keen Pity she spoke, and asked me of his queen And children ... The strange woman comes from there By race, an Argive maid.--What aileth her With tablets, else, and questionings as though Her own heart beat with Argos' joy or woe?

PYLADES. Thy speech is quicker, friend, else I had said The same; though surely all men visited By ships have heard the fall of the great kings. But let that be: I think of other things ...

ORESTES. What? If thou hast need of me, let it be said.

PYLADES. I cannot live for shame if thou art dead. I sailed together with thee; let us die Together. What a coward slave were I, Creeping through Argos and from glen to glen Of wind-torn Phocian hills! And most of men-- For most are bad--will whisper how one day I left my friend to die and made my way Home. They will say I watched the sinking breath Of thy great house and plotted for thy death To wed thy sister, climb into thy throne... I dread, I loathe it.--Nay, all ways but one Are shut. My last breath shall go forth with thine, Thy bloody sword, thy gulf of fire be mine Also. I love thee and I dread men's scorn.

ORESTES. Peace from such thoughts! My burden can be borne; But where one pain sufficeth, double pain I will not bear. Nay, all that scorn and stain That fright thee, on mine own head worse would be If I brought death on him who toiled for me. It is no bitter thing for such an one As God will have me be, at last to have done With living. THOU art happy; thy house lies At peace with God, unstained in men's eyes; Mine is all evil fate and evil life ... Nay, thou once safe, my sister for thy wife-- So we agreed:--in sons of hers and thine My name will live, nor Agamemnon's line Be blurred for ever like an evil scroll. Back! Rule thy land! Let life be in thy soul! And when thou art come to Hellas, and the plain Of Argos where the horsemen ride, again-- Give me thy hand!--I charge thee, let there be Some death-mound and a graven stone for me. My sister will go weep thereat, and shear A tress or two. Say how I ended here, Slain by a maid of Argolis, beside God's altar, in mine own blood purified.

And fare thee well. I have no friend like thee For truth and love, O boy that played with me, And hunted on Greek hills, O thou on whom Hath lain the hardest burden of my doom! Farewell. The Prophet and the Lord of Lies Hath done his worst. Far out from Grecian skies With craft forethought he driveth me, to die Where none may mark how ends his prophecy! I trusted in his word. I gave him all My heart. I slew my mother at his call; For which things now he casts me here to die.

PYLADES. Thy tomb shall fail thee not. Thy sister I Will guard for ever. I, O stricken sore, Who loved thee living and shall love thee more Dead. But for all thou standest on the brink, God's promise hath not yet destroyed thee. Think! How oft, how oft the darkest hour of ill Breaks brightest into dawn, if Fate but will!

ORESTES. Enough. Nor god nor man can any more Aid me. The woman standeth at the door.

[enter IPHIGENIA from the Temple.]

IPHIGENIA. Go ye within; and have all things of need In order set for them that do the deed. There wait my word.

[ATTENDANTS go in.]

Ye strangers, here I hold The many-lettered tablet, fold on fold. Yet ... one thing still. No man, once unafraid And safe, remembereth all the vows he made In fear of death. My heart misgiveth me, Lest he who bears my tablet, once gone free, Forget me here and set my charge at naught.

ORESTES. What wouldst thou, then? Thou hast some troubling thought.

IPHIGENIA. His sworn oath let him give, to bear this same Tablet to Argos, to the friend I name.

ORESTES. And if he give this oath, wilt thou swear too?

IPHIGENIA. What should I swear to do or not to do?

ORESTES. Send him from Tauris safe and free from ill.

IPHIGENIA. I promise. How else could he do my will?

ORESTES. The King will suffer this?

IPHIGENIA. Yes: I can bend The King, and set upon his ship thy friend.

ORESTES. Choose then what oath is best, and he will swear.

IPHIGENIA (to PYLADES, who has come up to her). Say: "To thy friend this tablet I will bear."

PYLADES (TAKING THE TABLET). Good. I will bear this tablet to thy friend.

IPHIGENIA. And I save thee beyond this kingdom's end.

PYLADES. What god dost thou invoke to witness this?

IPHIGENIA. Her in whose house I labour, Artemis.

PYLADES. And I the Lord of Heaven, eternal Zeus.

IPHIGENIA. And if thou fail me, or thine oath abuse ...?

PYLADES. May I see home no more. And thou, what then?

IPHIGENIA. May this foot never tread Greek earth again.

PYLADES. But stay: there is one chance we have forgot.

IPHIGENIA. A new oath can be sworn, if this serve not.

PYLADES. In one case set me free. Say I be crossed With shipwreck, and, with ship and tablet lost And all I bear, my life be saved alone: Let not this oath be held a thing undone, To curse me.

IPHIGENIA. Nay, then, many ways are best To many ends. The words thou carriest Enrolled and hid beneath that tablet's rim, I will repeat to thee, and thou to him I look for. Safer so. If the scrip sail Unhurt to Greece, itself will tell my tale Unaided: if it drown in some wide sea, Save but thyself, my words are saved with thee.

PYLADES. For thy sake and for mine 'tis fairer so. Now let me hear his name to whom I go In Argolis, and how my words should run.

IPHIGENIA (REPEATING THE WORDS BY HEART). Say: "To Orestes, Agamemnon's son She that was slain in Aulis, dead to Greece Yet quick, Iphigenia sendeth peace:"

ORESTES. Iphigenia! Where? Back from the dead?

IPHIGENIA. 'Tis I. But speak not, lest thou break my thread.-- "Take me to Argos, brother, ere I die, Back from the Friendless Peoples and the high Altar of Her whose bloody rites I wreak."

ORESTES (ASIDE). Where am I, Pylades? How shall I speak?

IPHIGENIA. "Else one in grief forsaken shall, like shame, Haunt thee."

PYLADES (aside). Orestes!

IPHIGENIA (overhearing him). Yes: that is the name.

PYLADES. Ye Gods above!

IPHIGENIA. Why callest thou on God For words of mine?

PYLADES. 'Tis nothing. 'Twas a road My thoughts had turned. Speak on.--No need for us To question; we shall hear things marvellous.

IPHIGENIA. Tell him that Artemis my soul did save, I wot not how, and to the altar gave A fawn instead; the which my father slew, Not seeing, deeming that the sword he drew Struck me. But she had borne me far away And left me in this land.--I charge thee, say So much. It all is written on the scroll.

PYLADES. An easy charge thou layest on my soul, A glad oath on thine own. I wait no more, But here fulfil the service that I swore. Orestes, take this tablet which I bear To thine own hand, thy sister's messenger.

ORESTES. I take it, but I reck not of its scrip Nor message. Too much joy is at my lip. Sister! Beloved! Wildered though I be, My arms believe not, yet they crave for thee. Now, filled with wonder, give me my delight!

[he goes to embrace her. she stands speechless.]

LEADER. Stranger, forbear! No living man hath right To touch that robe. The Goddess were defiled!

ORESTES. O Sister mine, O my dead father's child, Agamemnon's child; take me and have no fear, Beyond all dreams 'tis I thy brother here.

IPHIGENIA. My brother? Thou? ... Peace! Mock at me no more. Argos is bright with him and Nauplia's shore.

ORESTES. Unhappy one! Thou hast no brother there.

IPHIGENIA. Orestes ... thou? Whom Clytemnestra bare?

ORESTES. To Atreus' firstborn son, thy sire and mine.

IPHIGENIA. Thou sayst it: Oh, give me some proof, some sign!

ORESTES. What sign thou wilt. Ask anything from home.

IPHIGENIA. Nay, thou speak: 'tis from thee the sign should come.

ORESTES. That will I.--First, old tales Electra told. Thou knowest how Pelops' princes warred of old?

IPHIGENIA. I know: the Golden Lamb that wrought their doom.

ORESTES. Thine own hand wove that story on the loom...

IPHIGENIA. How sweet! Thou movest near old memories.

ORESTES. With a great Sun back beaten in the skies.

IPHIGENIA. Fine linen threads I used. The memories come.

ORESTES. And mother gave thee shrift-water from home For Aulis ...

IPHIGENIA. I remember. Not so fair A day did drink that water!

ORESTES. And thine hair They brought us for thy dying gift, and gave To mother.

IPHIGENIA. Yes: for record on the grave I sent it, where this head should never lie.

ORESTES. Another token, seen of mine own eye. The ancient lance that leapt in Pelops' hand, To win his bride, the virgin of the land, And smite Oenomaus, in thy chamber hid ...

IPHIGENIA (falling into his arms). Beloved! Oh, no other, for indeed Beloved art thou! In mine arms at last, Orestes far away.

ORESTES. And thou in mine, the evil dreaming past, Back from the dead this day! Yet through the joy tears, tears and sorrow loud Are o'er mine eyes and thine eyes, like a cloud.

IPHIGENIA. Is this the babe I knew, The little babe, light lifted like a bird? O heart of mine, too blest for any word, What shall I say or do? Beyond all wonders, beyond stories heard, This joy is here and true.

ORESTES. Could we but stay thus joined for evermore!

IPHIGENIA. A joy is mine I may not understand, Friends, and a fear, lest sudden from my hand This dream will melt and soar Up to the fiery skies from whence it came. O Argos land, O hearth and holy flame That old Cyclopes lit, I bless ye that he lives, that he is grown, A light and strength, my brother and mine own; I bless your name for it.

ORESTES. One blood we are; so much is well. But Fate, Sister, hath not yet made us fortunate.

IPHIGENIA. O most unfortunate! Did I not feel, Whose father, misery-hearted, at my bare Throat held the steel?

ORESTES. Woe's me! Methinks even now I see thee there.

IPHIGENIA. No love-song of Achilles! Crafty arms Drew me to that cold sleep, And tears, blind tears amid the altar psalms And noise of them that weep-- That was my cleansing!

ORESTES. My heart too doth bleed, To think our father wrought so dire a deed.

IPHIGENIA. My life hath known no father. Any road To any end may run, As god's will drives; else ...

ORESTES. Else, unhappy one, Thyself had spilt this day thy brother's blood!

IPHIGENIA. Ah God, my cruel deed! ... 'Twas horrible. 'Twas horrible ... O brother! Did my heart Endure it? ... And things fell Right by so frail a chance; and here thou art. Bloody my hand had been, My heart heavy with sin. And now, what end cometh? Shall Chance yet comfort me, Finding a way for thee Back from the Friendless Strand, Back from the place of death-- Ere yet the slayers come And thy blood sink in the sand-- Home unto Argos, home? ... Hard heart, so swift to slay, Is there to life no way? ...

No ship! ... And how by land? ... A rush of feet Out to the waste alone. Nay: 'twere to meet Death, amid tribes unknown And trackless ways of the waste ... Surely the sea were best. Back by the narrow bar To the Dark Blue Gate! ... Ah God, too far, too far! ... Desolate! Desolate!

What god or man, what unimagined flame, Can cleave this road where no road is, and bring To us last wrecks of Agamemnon's name, Peace from long suffering?

LEADER. Lo, deeds of wonder and beyond surmise, Not as tales told, but seen of mine own eyes.

PYLADES. Men that have found the arms of those they love Would fain long linger in the joy thereof. But we, Orestes, have no respite yet For tears or tenderness. Let us forget All but the one word Freedom, calling us To live, not die by altars barbarous. Think not of joy in this great hour, nor lose Fortune's first hold. Not thus do wise men use.

ORESTES. I think that Fortune watcheth o'er our lives, Surer than we. But well said: he who strives Will find his gods strive for him equally.

IPHIGENIA. He shall not check us so, nor baffle me Of this one word. How doth Electra move Through life? Ye twain are all I have to love.

ORESTES. A wife and happy: this man hath her hand.

IPHIGENIA. And what man's son is he, and of what land?

ORESTES. Son of King Strophios he is called of men.

IPHIGENIA. Whom Atreus' daughter wed?--My kinsman then.

ORESTES. Our cousin, and my true and only friend.

IPHIGENIA. He was not born, when I went to mine end.

ORESTES. No, Strophios had no child for many a year.

IPHIGENIA. I give thee hail, husband of one so dear.

ORESTES. My more than kinsman, saviour in my need!

IPHIGENIA. But mother ... Speak: how did ye dare that deed?

ORESTES. Our father's wrongs ... But let that story be.

IPHIGENIA. And she to slay her king! What cause had she?

ORESTES. Forget her! ... And no tale for thee it is.

IPHIGENIA. So be it.--And thou art Lord of Argolis?

ORESTES. Our uncle rules. I walk an exile's ways.

IPHIGENIA. Doth he so trample on our fallen days?

ORESTES. Nay: there be those that drive me, Shapes of Dread.

IPHIGENIA. Ah! That frenzy on the shore! 'Tis as they said...

ORESTES. They saw me in mine hour. It needs must be.

IPHIGENIA. 'Twas our dead mother's Furies hounding thee!

ORESTES. My mouth is bloody with the curb they ride.

IPHIGENIA. What brought thee here beyond the Friendless Tide?

ORESTES. What leads me everywhere--Apollo's word.

IPHIGENIA. Seeking what end?--Or may the tale be heard?

ORESTES. Nay, I can tell thee all. It needs must be The whole tale of my days of misery. When this sore evil that we speak not of Lit on my hand, this way and that they drove My body, till the God by diverse paths Led me to Athens, that the nameless Wraths Might bring me before judgment. For that land A pure tribunal hath, where Ares' hand, Red from an ancient stain, by Zeus was sent For justice. Thither came I; and there went God's hate before me, that at first no man Would give me shelter. Then some few began To pity, and set out for me aloof One table. There I sate within their roof, But without word they signed to me, as one Apart, unspoken to, unlocked upon, Lest touch of me should stain their meat and sup. And every man in measure filled his cup And gave me mine, and took their joy apart, While I sat silent; for I had no heart To upbraid the hosts that fed me. On I wrought In my deep pain, feigning to mark them not.

And now, men say, mine evil days are made A rite among them and the cups are laid Apart for each. The rule abideth still.

Howbeit, when I was come to Ares' Hill They gave me judgment. On one stone I stood, On one she that was eldest of the brood That hunted me so long. And many a word Touching my mother's death was spoke and heard, Till Phoebus rose to save me. Even lay The votes of Death and Life; when, lo, a sway Of Pallas' arm, and free at last I stood From that death grapple. But the Shapes of Blood-- Some did accept the judgment, and of grace Consent to make their house beneath that place In darkness. Others still consented not, But clove to me the more, like bloodhounds hot On the dying; till to Phoebus' house once more I crept, and cast me starving on the floor Facing the Holy Place, and made my cry: "Lord Phoebus, here I am come, and here will die, Unless thou save me, as thou hast betrayed." And, lo, from out that dark and golden shade A voice: "Go, seek the Taurian citadel: Seize there the carven Artemis that fell From heaven, and stablish it on Attic soil. So comes thy freedom." [IPHIGENIA shrinks.] Sister, in this toil

Help us!--If once that image I may win That day shall end my madness and my sin: And thou, to Argos o'er the sundering foam My many-oared barque shall bear thee home.

O sister loved and lost, O pitying face, Help my great peril; help our father's race. For lost am I and perished all the powers Of Pelops, save that heavenly thing be ours!

LEADER. Strange wrath of God hath fallen, like hot rain, On Tantalus' house: he leadeth them through pain.

IPHIGENIA. Long ere you came my heart hath yearned to be In Argos, brother, and so near to thee: But now--thy will is mine. To ease thy pain, To lift our father's house to peace again, And hate no more my murderers--aye,'tis good. Perchance to clean this hand that sought thy blood, And save my people... But the goddess' eyes, How dream we to deceive them? Or what wise Escape the King, when on his sight shall fall The blank stone of the empty pedestal? ... I needs must die ... What better can I do?

And yet, one chance there is: could I but go Together with the image: couldst thou bear Both on the leaping seas! The risk were fair. But how?

Nay, I must wait then and be slain: Thou shalt walk free in Argolis again, And all life smile on thee ... Dearest, we need Nor shrink from that. I shall by mine own deed Have saved thee. And a man gone from the earth Is wept for. Women are but little worth.

ORESTES. My mother and then thou? It may not be. This hand hath blood enough. I stand with thee One-hearted here, be it for life or death, And either bear thee, if God favoureth, With me to Greece and home, or else lie here Dead at thy side.--But mark me: if thou fear Lest Artemis be wroth, how can that be? Hath not her brother's self commanded me To bear to Greece her image?--Oh, he knew Her will! He knew that in this land we two Must meet once more. All that so far hath past Doth show his work. He will not at the last Fail. We shall yet see Argos, thou and I.

IPHIGENIA. To steal for thee the image, yet not die Myself! 'Tis that we need. 'Tis that doth kill My hope. Else ... Oh, God knows I have the will!

ORESTES. How if we slew your savage king?

IPHIGENIA. Ah, no: He sheltered me, a stranger.

ORESTES. Even so, If it bring life for me and thee, the deed May well be dared.

IPHIGENIA. I could not ... Nay; indeed I thank thee for thy daring.

ORESTES. Canst thou hide My body in the shrine?

IPHIGENIA. There to abide Till nightfall, and escape?

ORESTES. Even so; the night Is the safe time for robbers, as the light For just men.

IPHIGENIA. There be sacred watchers there Who needs must see us.

ORESTES. Gods above! What prayer Can help us then?

IPHIGENIA. I think I dimly see One chance.

ORESTES. What chance? Speak out thy fantasy.

IPHIGENIA'. On thine affliction I would build my way.

ORESTES. Women have strange devices.

IPHIGENIA. I would say Thou com'st from Hellas with thy mother's blood Upon thee.

ORESTES. Use my shame, if any good Will follow.

IPHIGENIA. Therefore, an offence most high It were to slay thee to the goddess!

ORESTES. Why? Though I half guess.

IPHIGENIA. Thy body is unclean.-- Oh, I will fill them with the fear of sin!

ORESTES. What help is that for the Image?

IPHIGENIA. I will crave To cleanse thee in the breaking of the wave.

ORESTES. That leaves the goddess still inside her shrine, And'tis for her we sailed.

IPHIGENIA. A touch of thine Defiled her. She too must be purified.

ORESTES. Where shall it be? Thou knowest where the tide Sweeps up in a long channel?

IPHIGENIA. Yes! And where Your ship, I guess, lies moored.

ORESTES. Whose hand will bear-- Should it be thine?--the image from her throne?

IPHIGENIA. No hand of man may touch it save mine own.

ORESTES. And Pylades--what part hath he herein?

IPHIGENIA. The same as thine. He bears the self-same sin.

ORESTES. How wilt thou work the plan--hid from the king Or known?

IPHIGENIA. To hide it were a hopeless thing.. Oh, I will face him, make him yield to me.

ORESTES. Well, fifty oars lie waiting on the sea.

IPHIGENIA. Aye, there comes thy work, till an end be made.

ORESTES. Good. It needs only that these women aid Our secret. Do thou speak with them, and find Words of persuasion. Power is in the mind Of woman to wake pity.--For the rest, God knoweth: may it all end for the best!

IPHIGENIA. O women, you my comrades, in your eyes I look to read my fate. In you it lies, That either I find peace, or be cast down To nothing, robbed for ever of mine own-- Brother, and home, and sister pricelessly Beloved.--Are we not women, you and I, A broken race, to one another true, And strong in our shared secrets? Help me through This strait; keep hid the secret of our flight, And share our peril! Honour shineth bright On her whose lips are steadfast ... Heaven above! Three souls, but one in fortune, one in love, Thou seest us go--is it to death or home? If home, then surely, surely, there shall come Part of our joy to thee. I swear, I swear To aid thee also home ...

[she goes to one after another, and presently kneels embracing the knees of the LEADER.]

I make my prayer By that right hand; to thee, too, by that dear Cheek; by thy knees; by all that is not here Of things beloved, by mother, father, child-- Thou hadst a child!--How say ye? Have ye smiled Or turned from me? For if ye turn away, I and my brother are lost things this day.

LEADER. Be of good heart, sweet mistress. Only go To happiness. No child of man shall know From us thy secret. Hear me, Zeus on high!

IPHIGENIA (rising). God bless you for that word, and fill your eye With light!--

[turning to ORESTES and PYLADES.]

But now, to work! Go thou, and thou, In to the deeper shrine. King Thoas now Should soon be here to question if the price Be yet paid of the strangers' sacrifice.

[ORESTES and PYLADES go in.]

Thou Holy One, that on the shrouded sand Of Aulis saved me from a father's hand Blood-maddened, save me now, and save these twain. Else shall Apollo's lips, through thy disdain, Be no more true nor trusted in men's eyes. Come from the friendless shore, the cruel skies, Come back: what mak'st thou here, when o'er the sea A clean and joyous land doth call for thee?

[she follows the men into the temple.]

CHORUS.

[STROPHE I.]

Bird of the sea rocks, of the bursting spray, O halcyon bird, That wheelest crying, crying, on thy way; Who knoweth grief can read the tale of thee: One love long lost, one song for ever heard And wings that sweep the sea.

Sister, I too beside the sea complain, A bird that hath no wing. Oh, for a kind Greek market-place again, For Artemis that healeth woman's pain; ' Here I stand hungering. Give me the little hill above the sea, The palm of Delos fringed delicately, The young sweet laurel and the olive-tree Grey-leaved and glimmering; O Isle of Leto, Isle of pain and love; The Orbed Water and the spell thereof; Where still the Swan, minstrel of things to be, Doth serve the Muse and sing!

[ANTISTROPHE I.]

Ah, the old tears, the old and blinding tears I gave God then, When my town fell, and noise was in mine ears Of crashing towers, and forth they guided me Through spears and lifted oars and angry men Out to an unknown sea. They bought my flesh with gold, and sore afraid I came to this dark East To serve, in thrall to Agamemnon's maid, This Huntress Artemis, to whom is paid The blood of no slain beast; Yet all is bloody where I dwell, Ah me! Envying, envying that misery That through all life hath endured changelessly. For hard things borne from birth Make iron of man's heart, and hurt the less. 'Tis change that paineth; and the bitterness Of life's decay when joy hath ceased to be That makes dark all the earth.

Behold, [STROPHE 2.] Two score and ten there be Rowers that row for thee, And a wild hill air, as if Pan were there, Shall sound on the Argive sea, Piping to set thee free.

Or is it the stricken string Of Apollo's lyre doth sing Joyously, as he guideth thee To Athens, the land of spring; While I wait wearying?

Oh, the wind and the oar, When the great sail swells before, With sheets astrain, like a horse on the rein; And on, through the race and roar, She feels for the farther shore.

Ah me, [ANTISTROPHE 2.] To rise upon wings and hold Straight on up the steeps of gold Where the joyous Sun in fire doth run, Till the wings should faint and fold O'er the house that was mine of old:

Or watch where the glade below With a marriage dance doth glow, And a child will glide from her mother's side Out, out, where the dancers flow: As I did, long ago.

Oh, battles of gold and rare Raiment and starred hair, And bright veils crossed amid tresses tossed In a dusk of dancing air! O Youth and the days that were!

[enter KING THOAS, with soldiers.]

THOAS. Where is the warden of this sacred gate, The Greek woman? Is her work ended yet With those two strangers? Do their bodies lie Aflame now in the rock-cleft sanctuary?

LEADER. Here is herself, O King, to give thee word. enter, from the temple, IPHIGENIA, carrying the image on high.

THOAS. How, child of Agamemnon! Hast thou stirred From her eternal base, and to the sun Bearest in thine own arms, the Holy One?

IPHIGENIA. Back Lord! No step beyond the pillared way.

THOAS. But how? Some rule is broken?

IPHIGENIA. I unsay That word. Be all unspoken and unwrought!

THOAS. What means this greeting strange? Disclose thy thought.

IPHIGENIA. Unclean the prey was that ye caught, O King.

THOAS. Who showed thee so? Thine own imagining?

IPHIGENIA. The Image stirred and shuddered from its seat.

THOAS. Itself? ... Some shock of earthquake loosened it.

IPHIGENIA. Itself. And the eyes closed one breathing space.

THOAS. But why? For those two men's bloodguiltiness?

IPHIGENIA. That, nothing else. For, Oh, their guilt is sore.

THOAS. They killed some of my herdsmen on the shore?

IPHIGENIA. Their sin was brought from home, not gathered here.

THOAS. What? I must know this.--Make thy story clear.

IPHIGENIA. (she puts the image down and moves nearer to thoas.) The men have slain their mother.

THOAS. God! And these Be Greeks!

IPHIGENIA They both are hunted out of Greece.

THOAS. For this thou has brought the Image to the sun?

IPHIGENIA. The fire of heaven can cleanse all malison.

THOAS. How didst thou first hear of their deed of shame?

IPHIGENIA. When the Image hid its eyes, I questioned them.

THOAS. Good. Greece hath taught thee many a subtle art.

IPHIGENIA. Ah, they too had sweet words to move my heart.

THOAS. Sweet words? How, did they bring some news of Greece?

IPHIGENIA. Orestes, my one brother, lives in peace.

THOAS. Surely! Good news to make thee spare their lives ...

IPHIGENIA. My father too in Argos lives and thrives.

THOAS. While thou didst think but of the goddess' laws!

IPHIGENIA. Do I not hate all Greeks? Have I not cause?

THOAS. Good cause. But now ... What service should be paid?

IPHIGENIA. The Law of long years needs must be obeyed.

THOAS. To work then, with thy sword and handwashing!

IPHIGENIA. First I must shrive them with some cleansing thing.

THOAS. What? Running water, or the sea's salt spray?

IPHIGENIA. The sea doth wash all the world's ills away.

THOAS. For sure. 'Twill make them cleaner for the knife.

IPHIGENIA. And my hand, too, cleaner for all my life.

THOAS. Well, the waves lap close by the temple floor.

IPHIGENIA. We need a secret place. I must do more.

THOAS. Some rite unseen? 'Tis well. Go where thou wilt.

IPHIGENIA. The Image likewise must be purged of guilt.

THOAS. The stain hath touched it of that mother's blood?

IPHIGENIA. I durst not move it else, from where it stood.

THOAS. How good thy godliness and forethought! Aye, Small wonder all our people holds thee high.

IPHIGENIA. Dost know then what I fain would have?

THOAS. 'Tis thine to speak and it shall be.

IPHIGENIA. Put bondage on the strangers both ...

THOAS. Why bondage? Whither can they flee?

IPHIGENIA. Put not thy faith in any Greek.

THOAS (to ATTENDANTS). Ho, men! Some thongs and fetters, go!

IPHIGENIA. Stay; let them lead the strangers here, outside the shrine ...

THOAS. It shall be so.

IPHIGENIA. And lay dark raiment on their heads ...

THOAS. To veil them, lest the Sun should see.

IPHIGENIA. And lend me some of thine own spears.

THOAS. This company shall go with thee.

IPHIGENIA. Next, send through all the city streets a herald ...

THOAS. Aye; and what to say?

IPHIGENIA. That no man living stir abroad.

THOAS. The stain of blood might cross their way.

IPHIGENIA. Aye, sin like theirs doth spread contagion.

THOAS (to an ATTENDANT). Forth, and publish my command ...

IPHIGENIA. That none stir forth--nor look ...

THOAS. Nor look.--How well thou carest for the land!

IPHIGENIA. For one whom I am bound to love.

THOAS. Indeed, I think thou hat'st me not.

IPHIGENIA. And thou meanwhile, here at the temple, wait, O King, and ...

THOAS. Wait for what?

IPHIGENIA. Purge all the shrine with fire.

THOAS. 'Twill all be clean before you come again.

IPHIGENIA. And while the strangers pass thee close, seeking the sea ...

THOAS. What wouldst thou then?

IPHIGENIA. Put darkness on thine eyes.

THOAS. Mine eyes might drink the evil of their crime?

IPHIGENIA.

And, should I seem to stay too long ...

THOAS. Too long? How shall I judge the time?

IPHIGENIA. Be not dismayed.

THOAS. Perform thy rite all duly. We have time to spare.

IPHIGENIA. And God but grant this cleansing end as I desire!

THOAS. I join thy prayer.

IPHIGENIA. The door doth open! See, they lead the strangers from the cell within, And raiment holy and young lambs, whose blood shall shrive the blood of Sin. And, lo, the light of sacred fires, and things of secret power, arrayed By mine own hand to cleanse aright the strangers, to cleanse Leto's Maid.

[she takes up the image again.]

There passeth here a holy thing: begone, I charge ye, from the road, O whoso by these sacred gates may dwell, hand-consecrate to God, What man hath marriage in his heart, what woman goeth great with child, Begone and tremble from this road: fly swiftly, lest ye be defiled.--

O Queen and Virgin, Leto-born, have pity! Let me cleanse this stain, And pray to thee where pray I would: a clean house shall be thine again, And we at last win happiness.--Behold, I speak but as I dare; The rest ... Oh, God is wise, and thou, my Mistress, thou canst read my prayer.

[The procession passes out, THOAS and the bystanders veiled; Attendants in front, then IPHIGENIA with the Image, then veiled Soldiers, then ORESTES and PYLADES bound, the bonds held by other veiled Soldiers following them. THOAS goes into the Temple.]

CHORUS. [STROPHE.] Oh, fair the fruits of Leto blow: A Virgin, one, with joyous bow, And one a Lord of flashing locks, Wise in the harp, Apollo: She bore them amid Delian rocks, Hid in a fruited hollow.

But forth she fared from that low reef, Sea-cradle of her joy and grief. A crag she knew more near the skies And lit with wilder water, That leaps with joy of Dionyse: There brought she son and daughter.

And there, behold, an ancient Snake, Wine-eyed, bronze-gleaming in the brake Of deep-leaved laurel, ruled the dell, Sent by old Earth from under Strange caves to guard her oracle-- A thing of fear and wonder.

Thou, Phoebus, still a new-born thing, Meet in thy mother's arms to lie, Didst kill the Snake and crown thee king, In Pytho's land of prophecy: Thine was the tripod and the chair Of golden truth; and throned there, Hard by the streams of Castaly, Beneath the untrodden portal Of Earth's mid stone there flows from thee Wisdom for all things mortal.

[ANTISTROPHE.]

He slew the Snake; he cast, men say, Themis, the child of Earth, away From Pytho and her hallowed stream; Then Earth, in dark derision, Brought forth the Peoples of the Dream And all the tribes of Vision.

And men besought them; and from deep Confused underworlds of sleep They showed blind things that erst had been And are and yet shall follow So did avenge that old Earth Queen Her child's wrong on Apollo.

Then swiftly flew that conquering one To Zeus on high, and round the throne Twining a small indignant hand, Prayed him to send redeeming To Pytho from that troublous band Sprung from the darks of dreaming.

Zeus laughed to see the babe, I trow, So swift to claim his golden rite; He laughed and bowed his head, in vow To still those voices of the night. And so from out the eyes of men That dark dream-truth was lost again; And Phoebus, throneed where the throng Prays at the golden portal, Again doth shed in sunlit song Hope unto all things mortal.

Full Text (part 3)

[enter a MESSENGER, running.]

MESSENGER. Ho, watchers of the fane! Ho, altar-guard, Where is King Thoas gone? Undo the barred Portals, and call the King! The King I seek.

LEADER. What tidings--if unbidden I may speak?

MESSENGER. The strangers both are gone, and we beguiled, By some dark plot of Agamemnon's child: Fled from the land! And on a barque of Greece They bear the heaven-sent shape of Artemis.

LEADER. Thy tale is past belief.--Go, swiftly on, And find the King. He is but newly gone.

MESSENGER. Where went he? He must know of what has passed!

LEADER. I know not where he went. But follow fast And seek him. Thou wilt light on him ere long.

MESSENGER. See there! The treason of a woman's tongue! Ye all are in the plot, I warrant ye!

LEADER. Thy words are mad! What are the men to me? ... Go to the palace, go!

MESSENGER (seeing the great knocker on the temple door.) I will not stir Till word be come by this good messenger If Thoas be within these gates or no.--

[thundering at the door.]

Ho, loose the portals! Ye within! What ho! Open, and tell our master one doth stand Without here, with strange evil in his hand.

[enter THAOS from the temple.]

THOAS. Who dares before this portal consecrate Make uproar and lewd battering of the gate? Thy noise hath broke the Altar's ancient peace.

MESSENGER. Ye Gods! They swore to me--and bade me cease My search--the King was gone. And all the while ...!

THOAS. These women? How? What sought they by such guile?

MESSENGER. Of them hereafter!--Give me first thine ear For greater things. The virgin minister That served our altar, she hath fled from this And stolen the dread Shape of Artemis, With those two Greeks. The cleansing was a lie.

THOAS. She fled?--What wild hope whispered her to fly?

MESSENGER. The hope to save Orestes. Wonder on!

THOAS. Orestes--how? Not Clytemnestra's son?

MESSENGER. And our pledged altar-offering. 'Tis the same.

THOAS. O marvel beyond marvel! By what name More rich in wonder can I name thee right?

MESSENGER. Give not thy mind to that. Let ear and sight Be mine awhile; and when thou hast heard the whole Devise how best to trap them ere the goal.

THOAS. Aye, tell thy tale. Our Tauric seas stretch far, Where no man may escape my wand of war.

MESSENGER. Soon as we reached that headland of the sea, Whereby Orestes' barque lay secretly, We soldiers holding, by thine own commands, The chain that bound the strangers, in our hands, There Agamemnon's daughter made a sign, Bidding us wait far off, for some divine And secret fire of cleansing she must make. We could but do her will. We saw her take The chain in her own hands and walk behind. Indeed thy servants bore a troubled mind, O King, but how do else? So time went by. Meanwhile to make it seem she wrought some high Magic, she cried aloud: then came the long Drone of some strange and necromantic song, As though she toiled to cleanse that blood; and there Sat we, that long time, waiting. Till a fear O'ertook us, that the men might slip their chain And strike the priestess down and plunge amain For safety: yet the dread our eyes to fill With sights unbidden held us, and we still Sat silent. But at last all spoke as one, Forbid or not forbid, to hasten on And find them. On we went, and suddenly, With oarage poised, like wings upon the sea, An Argive ship we saw, her fifty men All benched, and on the shore, with every chain Cast off, our strangers, standing by the stern! The prow was held by stay-poles: turn by turn The anchor-cable rose; some men had strung Long ropes into a ladder, which they swung Over the side for those two Greeks to climb.

The plot was open, and we lost no time But flew to seize the cables and the maid, And through the stern dragged out the steering-blade, To spoil her course, and shouted: "Ho, what way Is this, to sail the seas and steal away An holy image and its minister? What man art them, and what man's son, to bear Our priestess from the land?" And clear thereon He spoke: "Orestes, Agamemnon's son, And brother to this maid, whom here in peace I bear, my long lost sister, back to Greece."

We none the less clung fast to her, and strove To drag her to thy judgment-seat. Thereof Came trouble and bruised jaws. For neither they Nor we had weapons with us. But the way Hard-beaten fist and heel from those two men Rained upon ribs and flank--again, again... To touch was to fall gasping! Aye, they laid Their mark on all of us, till back we fled With bleeding crowns, and some with blinded eyes, Up a rough bank of rock. There on the rise We found good stones and stood, and fought again.

But archers then came out, and sent a rain Of arrows from the poop, and drove us back. And just then--for a wave came, long and black, And swept them shoreward--lest the priestess' gown Should feel the sea, Orestes stooping down Caught her on his left shoulder: then one stride Out through the sea, the ladder at the side Was caught, and there amid the benches stood The maid of Argos and the carven wood Of heaven, the image of God's daughter high.

And up from the mid galley rose a cry: "For Greece! For Greece, O children of the shores Of storm! Give way, and let her feel your oars; Churn the long waves to foam. The prize is won. The prize we followed, on and ever on, Friendless beyond the blue Symplegades." A roar of glad throats echoed down the breeze And fifty oars struck, and away she flew. And while the shelter lasted, she ran true Full for the harbour-mouth; but ere she well Reached it, the weather caught her, and the swell Was strong. Then sudden in her teeth a squall Drove the sail bellying back. The men withal Worked with set teeth, kicking against the stream. But back, still back, striving as in a dream, She drifted. Then the damsel rose and prayed: "O Child of Leto, save thy chosen maid From this dark land to Hellas, and forgive My theft this day, and let these brave men live. Dost thou not love thy brother, Holy One? What marvel if I also love mine own?"

The sailors cried a paean to her prayers, And set those brown and naked arms of theirs, Half-mad with strain, quick swinging chime on chime To the helmsman's shout. But vainly; all the time Nearer and nearer rockward they were pressed. One of our men was wading to his breast, Some others roping a great grappling-hook, While I sped hot-foot to the town, to look For thee, my Prince, and tell thee what doth pass.

Come with me, Lord. Bring manacles of brass And bitter bonds. For now, unless the wave Fall sudden calm, no mortal power can save Orestes. There is One that rules the sea Who grieved for Troy and hates her enemy: Poseidon's self will give into thine hand And ours this dog, this troubler of the land-- The priestess, too, who, recking not what blood Ran red in Aulis, hath betrayed her god!

LEADER. Woe, woe! To fall in these men's hands again, Mistress, and die, and see thy brother slain!

THOAS. Ho, all ye dwellers of my savage town Set saddle on your steeds, and gallop down To watch the heads, and gather what is cast Alive from this Greek wreck. We shall make fast, By God's help, the blasphemers.--Send a corps Out in good boats a furlong from the shore; So we shall either snare them on the seas Or ride them down by land, and at our ease Fling them down gulfs of rock, or pale them high On stakes in the sun, to feed our birds and die.

Women: you knew this plot. Each one of you Shall know, before the work I have to do Is done, what torment is.--Enough. A clear Task is afoot. I must not linger here.

[While THOAS is moving off, his men shouting and running before and behind him, there comes a sudden blasting light and thunder- roll, and ATHENA is seen in the air confronting them.]

ATHENA. Ho, whither now, so hot upon the prey, King Thoas? It is I that bid thee stay, Athena, child of Zeus. Turn back this flood Of wrathful men, and get thee temperate blood. Apollo's word and Fate's ordained path Have led Orestes here, to escape the wrath Of Them that Hate. To Argos he must bring His sister's life, and guide that Holy Thing Which fell from heaven, in mine own land to dwell. So shall his pain have rest, and all be well. Thou hast heard my speech, O King. No death from thee May share Orestes between rocks and sea: Poseidon for my love doth make the sore Waves gentle, and set free his labouring oar.

And thou, O far away--for, far or near A goddess speaketh and thy heart must hear-- Go on thy ways, Orestes, bearing home The Image and thy sister. When ye come To god-built Athens, lo, a land there is Half hid on Attica's last boundaries, A little land, hard by Karystus' Rock, But sacred. It is called by Attic folk Halae. Build there a temple, and bestow Therein thine Image, that the world may know The tale of Tauris and of thee, cast out From pole to pole of Greece, a blood-hound rout Of ill thoughts driving thee. So through the whole Of time to Artemis the Tauropole Shall men make hymns at Halae. And withal Give them this law. At each high festival, A sword, in record of thy death undone, Shall touch a man's throat, and the red blood run-- One drop, for old religion's sake. In this Shall live that old red rite of Artemis. And them, Iphigenia, by the stair Of Brauron in the rocks, the Key shalt bear Of Artemis. There shalt thou live and die, And there have burial. And a gift shall lie Above thy shrine, fair raiment undefiled Left upon earth by mothers dead with child.

Ye last, O exiled women, true of heart And faithful found, ye shall in peace depart, Each to her home: behold Athena's will.

Orestes, long ago on Ares' Hill I saved thee, when the votes of Death and Life Lay equal: and henceforth, when men at strife So stand, mid equal votes of Life and Death, My law shall hold that Mercy conquereth. Begone. Lead forth thy sister from this shore In peace; and thou, Thoas, be wroth no more.

THOAS. Most high Athena, he who bows not low His head to God's word spoken, I scarce know How such an one doth live. Orestes hath Fled with mine Image hence ... I bear no wrath. Nor yet against his sister. There is naught, Methinks, of honour in a battle fought 'Gainst gods. The strength is theirs. Let those two fare Forth to thy land and plant mine Image there. I wish them well.

These bondwomen no less I will send free to Greece and happiness, And stay my galleys' oars, and bid this brand Be sheathed again, Goddess, at thy command.

ATHENA. 'Tis well, O King. For that which needs must be Holdeth the high gods as it holdeth thee.

Winds of the north, O winds that laugh and run, Bear now to Athens Agamemnon's son: Myself am with you, o'er long leagues of foam Guiding my sister's hallowed Image home.

[she floats away.]

CHORUS. SOME WOMEN.

Go forth in bliss, O ye whose lot God shieldeth, that ye perish not!

OTHERS.

O great in our dull world of clay, And great in heaven's undying gleam, Pallas, thy bidding we obey: And bless thee, for mine ears have heard The joy and wonder of a word Beyond my dream, beyond my dream.

NOTES TO IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

P. 3, 1. 1.--Oenomaus, King of Elis, offered his daughter and his kingdom to any man who should beat him in a chariot race; those who failed he slew. Pelops challenged him and won the race through a trick of his servant, Myrtilus, who treacherously took the linchpins out of Oenomaus's chariot. Oenomaus was thrown out and killed; Pelops took the kingdom, but in remorse or indignation threw Myrtilus into the sea (1. 192, p. 11). In some stories Oenomaus killed the suitors by spearing them from behind when they passed him. Pelops was the son of Tantalus, renowned for his pride and its punishment.

P. 3, 1. 8, For Helen's sake.--i.e. in order to win Helen back from the Trojans.

P. 4, 1. 23, Whatever birth most fair.--Artemis Kalliste ("Most Fair") was apparently so called because, after a competition for beauty, that which won the prize ([Greek Text]) was selected and given to her. This rite is made by the story to lead to a sacrifice of the fairest maiden, and may very possibly have sometimes done so.

P. 4, 1. 42.--She tells her dream to the sky to get it off her mind, much as the Nurse does in the Medea (p. 5,1.57).

P. 5, 1. 50, One ... pillar.--It is worth remembering that a pillar was among the earliest objects of worship in Crete and elsewhere. Cf. "the pillared sanctities" (1. 128, p. 9) and the "blood on the pillars" (1. 405, p. 20).

P. 8, 1. 113, A hollow one might creep through.--The metopes, or gaps between the beams. The Temple was therefore of a primitive Dorian type.

P. 8, 11. 124-125.--The land of Tauris is conceived as being beyond the Symplegades, or, as here, as being the country of the Symplegades.

As these semi-mythical names settled down in history, Tauris became the Crimea, the Symplegades, or "Clashing Rocks," or "Dark- Blue Rocks," became two rocks at the upper end of the Bosphorus, and the Friendless or Strangerless Sea became the Euxine. The word Axeinos, "Friendless," has often been altered in the MSS. of this play to Euxeinos, "Hospitable," which was the ordinary prose name of the Black Sea in historical times.

P. 9, l. 133, The horses and the towers.--The steppes of the Taurians would have no gardens or city walls, but it is curious that Hellas should seem specially a land of horses by comparison. Cf. p. 86, l. 1423, where Thoas has horses.

P. 10, l. 168, The golden goblet, &c.--She evidently takes jars of libation from the Attendants and pours them during the next few lines into some Eschara, or Altar for the Dead. Most of the rite would probably be performed kneeling.

P. 11, ll. 192 ff., The dark and wheeling coursers.--i.e. those of Pelops. The cry of one betrayed: Myrtilus, when he was thrown into the sea. (See on l. 1.) For the Golden Lamb and the Sun turning in Heaven, see my translation of Electra, p. 47, l. 699 and note.

P. 12, l. 217, The Nereid's Son.--Achilles, son of Peleus and the Nereid Thetis.

P. 13, l. 238, The Herdsman's entrance.--Observe how Iphigenia is first merely disturbed in her obsequies: then comes the sickening news that there are strangers to sacrifice: then lastly, her worst fear is realised; the men are Greeks. This explains her exasperated tone in l. 254, "The sea! What is the sea ..." and "Go back!"--The Herdsman is merely jubilant and obtuse.

P. 15, l. 263.--The murex or purple-fish could only be collected in very late autumn or early spring; consequently the fishers made encampments for the winter and returned to Tyre and Sidon, or wherever else they came from, after the spring fishing. See Berard, Pheniciens et Odyssee, i. 415.

P. 15, 1. 270, Son of the White Sea Spirit, &c.--The man is, of course, made to use the names of Greek not of Taurian gods. He thinks first of Palaemon, a sea-god, son of Leucothea ("White- Goddess"), then of the Dioskori, Castor and Polydeuces; then vaguely of some spirits beloved of Nereus, the Ancient of the Sea.

P. 17, 1. 328 f., Of all those shots not one struck home.--The object of this statement must be to explain why the two heroes do not make their appearance bruised and dishevelled as the Second Messenger does after his fight with the Greeks. Of course there is no great harm in making the Taurians bad shots as well as cowards, and possibly there is some value in the suggestion of a supernatural protection which is only saving its object for a crueller death. But very likely the two lines are interpolations.

Pp. 17, 18, 11. 342 ff.--A wonderful speech, illustrating the gradual breaking-up of the ice in Iphigenia's nature.--The Herdsman's story has, of course, been horrible to her; all the more so because he expects her to enjoy it and recalls wild words she has uttered in the past, when brooding on her wrongs. She controls her feelings absolutely till the man is gone. Then she feels like one turned to stone, pitiless; then, if only it were Helen or Menelaus that she had to kill! Then vivid thoughts of the misery and horror of Aulis and the poor foolish hopes and tremors in which she had come there; then the thought that Orestes, the one man whom she could love without resentment, is dead. Then a rage of indignation against the bloody rites and the infamy of the thing she has to do. She goes into the Temple broken in nerve and almost ready for rebellion.

P. 19, 11. 385 ff.--Leto, beloved of Zeus, was the mother of Artemis and Apollo, who were born in the holy island of Delos.-- One legend, already rejected by Pindar, said that the crime of Tantalus was that he had given his child Pelops to the gods to eat.

P. 19, 1. 392, Dark of the sea.--The Dark-Blue of the Symplegades is meant. Sometimes it is only the Argo that has ever passed through them; here it is only Io, daughter of Inachus, loved by Zeus and hunted by the gadfly, who fled outcast through the East. Her story is told in Aeschylus' Prometheus and in a magnificent chorus of his Suppliant Women. (See Rise of the Greek Epic, pp. 247 ff.)

The present lyric begins by wondering how and why the strangers have come: then come thoughts of the voyage and places they must have passed; the coast, where Phineus was haunted by the Harpies, the enchanted sea beyond the Symplegades, and the mysterious Isle of Leuce ("White") where Achilles lives after death.--Then comes a thought of Iphigenia's longing for revenge on Helen: but revenge is no use. It is home they crave, or, if that is impossible, then sleep and dreams of home.

P. 21, 1. 431, The steering oar abaft;--The steering was done by an oar, or sometimes two oars, projecting into the sea from a hole in the stern. Cf. 1. 1356, p. 83, "And through the stern dragged out the steering-blade." If this oar was left free, it would ripple and beat against the side.

P. 23, 1. 472, What mother then was yours, &c.--Not very like a woman "turned to stone" or "without a tear." She had miscalculated her own feelings.--Observe how Orestes sternly rejects her sentimental sympathy. He needs all his strength.

P. 25, 1. 512, A kind of banishment.--He was driven by his Furies, not legally banished.

Pp. 26, 27, 11. 515 and 529, "Oh how sweet to see thee here!" and "Oh, give me this hour full. Thou wilt soon die."--Iphigenia is more than tactless. She is so starving for home or anything that brings her into touch with home, that neither this Stranger's death nor anything else matters to her in comparison. A fine dramatic stroke.

The people of whom she asks are, first, her enemies--Helen; Calchas, the prophet, who had commanded her sacrifice; Odysseus, who had devised the plot by which she was brought to Aulis (11. 16, 24); then Achilles, who had been the hero of her dreams; then, with fear and hesitancy, those for whom she cares most.--Observe, at 1. 553, how, on hearing of her father's murder, her first thought is pity for her mother. Her father is already in her mind "he that slew." But in every line of this dialogue there is fine drama and psychology.

P. 28, 1. 538, "Small help his bridal brought him; he is dead."-- It has been thought curious that the mention of Achilles should immediately suggest to Orestes the bridal at Aulis, though of course it does so to Iphigenia. But after all it was Orestes' sister that Achilles was to marry at Aulis; and secondly, a large part of Orestes' troubles came from the carrying off of his betrothed, Hermione, by Achilles' bastard son, Pyrrhus. If the marriage at Aulis had taken place and Achilles left a true-born son, that would all have been different.

P. 31, 1. 569, Light dreams farewell! Ye too were lies.--This does seem a wrong conclusion. The dreams only suggested that Orestes had died the day before, long after this man had left Argos. But perhaps it is not unnatural.

P. 32, 11. 576 f., We too have kinsmen dear.--A most characteristic Euripidean saying. It also leads up to the personal interest in the Chorus which we feel after 1. 1075, p. 63, when they are taken into the conspiracy and then abandoned.

P. 32, 1. 578, Listen; for I am fallen upon a thought.--It must not be supposed that this use of the tablet is an obvious or easy thing. It is a daring project that crosses her mind, as one possible way of avoiding the death of this Stranger. Her hesitation at 1. 742--where a pause is indicated in the Greek-- shows that she is only trusting to her special influence over the King to get him to relax the law. Presumably merchants sometimes were admitted to the Tauri; for instance, those who brought the Chorus. The safe way to use the tablet would have been to make sure of the friendship of one of these. But such questions lie outside the play.

P. 34, 1. 618, This altar's spell is over me.--I translate the MS. reading [Greek text]. In my text I accepted the usual emendation [Greek text]. But [Greek text] means "spell" or "infection." See Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 86.

P. 34, 1. 627, My sister's hand.--i.e. Electra's.

Pp. 35-39, 11. 645-724.--Observe that all through this scene it is Pylades who is broken and Orestes strong. Contrast their first entrance, pp. 6-8.

P. 45, 1. 804, Argos is bright with him.--Literally, "is full of him." I am not sure that I understand the expression, but I think she feels Orestes as a magnificent presence filling all his home.

P. 46, 11. 809 ff.--The "signs" are clear enough. He remembers that there was an embroidery of the Golden Lamb story worked by Iphigenia; that when she started for Aulis she had cut off her hair for her mother and her mother had given her some Inachus water to use in the sacred washing before her marriage; also, there was an old spear belonging to Pelops in Iphigenia's room.-- Apparently Pelops carried a spear in the chariot race, just as Oenomaus did.

Pp. 47-50, 11. 827-900.--In this scene Iphigenia simply abandons herself to one emotion after another, while Orestes, amid all his joy, keeps his head and thinks about the danger that still surrounds them. When he reminds her that they are "not yet fortunate," she thinks only of Aulis and her old wrong. At last Orestes gets in the word, "Suppose you had murdered me to-day," and she is recalled by a rush of horror at her own conduct: she has nearly killed him, and he is still in imminent danger. She tries passionately and despairingly to think of ways of escape, but it needs the intervention of Pylades (which she rather resents) to bring her into a mood for sober thinking.

P. 51, 1. 915, A wife and happy.--The last we heard of Electra was that she lived "unmated and alone" (1. 562, p. 31). But that was said when Pylades was regarded as practically a dead man. Electra was apparently betrothed to Pylades, but was not actually his wife.--There is no mention of the Peasant husband of the Electra.

P. 52, 1. 818.--Anaxibia (?), sister of Agamemnon, was wife to Strophios. See genealogical table.

P. 53, 11. 930 ff., That frenzy on the shore!--It is only now that Iphigenia fully realises her brother's madness. His narrative immediately following makes her feel it the more, and it is evidently in her mind while she speaks 11. 989 ff.

P. 54 f., 11. 940 ff., Orestes' Trial at Athens.--According to one legend Orestes was finally purified of his guilt by a trial at the Areopagus, in which Apollo championed him, and Athena, as President, gave a casting vote for mercy. (This is the story of Aeschylus' Eumenides.) By another, he was healed when he had brought this Image of Artemis to Attica. Euripides combines the two.--It must often have happened in a blood-feud that some of the kindred of the slain man would accept the result of a trial and obey the law, while some cared for no law but clung to their vengeance. Euripides makes the Furies do the same. Some accept the judgment and stay as "Eumenides" in Athens; others know no law nor mercy.

P. 55, 11. 949-960, Mine evil days are made a rite among them.--At the Feast of the Anthesteria, each family summoned its ghosts from the grave and after the feast sent them back again. While they were about, it was very important that each man should keep his ghosts to himself: there must be no infection of strange or baleful ghosts. Hence a rite in which each man ate and drank his own portion, holding no communication with his neighbour. The story then went that this was done in commemoration of Orestes' visit to Athens with the stain of blood upon him. (See Miss Harrison's Prolegomena, chap, ii.) There was a similar feast in Aegina.

P. 56, 11. 990-1006.--Iphigenia's speech. We must realise that Iphigenia has been suddenly confronted by a new and complicated difficulty. She was prepared to make some plot to save her brother's life. She now realises that he is on the verge of madness; that he is determined to commit an act of what will be considered desperate sacrilege by stealing the image of Artemis; and that he expects her to help him to get the image to his ship. --She might hope to send him away safe and be forgiven by the King: if she helps him to steal the image, she cannot possibly be forgiven. Again, she might very possibly fly with him secretly, if she went alone; but to steal the statue and fly seems impossible.

Confronted with this problem, she deliberately abandons both her thoughts of vengeance and her hope of escape, and agrees to give her life for Orestes.

P. 59, 1. 1029, I think I dimly see.--Compare Electra, translation, p. 42, where Electra suddenly solves the difficulty of slaying Clytemnestra.

P. 63, 11. 1075 ff., Be of good heart, sweet Mistress.--The women of the Chorus are indeed "true of heart and faithful found," as Athena says later. And one feels that Iphigenia, after her first gush of gratitude, does not think of them much. She will save her brother, and they will be left with very little hope of ever seeing Greece, if indeed they are not fatally compromised by their share in the plot.--One can hardly blame Iphigenia; but it is like her.

P. 64, 1. 1089, Bird of the sea rocks.--A wonderful lyric, as spoken by these exiles waiting on the shore.--In their craving for home the island of Delos becomes the symbol for all that is Greek. Delos, the birth-place of Apollo and of a kinder Artemis than that which they now serve, was the meeting-place of all the Ionians. The palm-tree, the laurel, the olive, and the Orbed Lake of Delos were all celebrated in ritual poetry. The singing Swan is not a myth; it is a migratory swan, with a bell-like cry, which comes in the winter down from South Russia to Greece.

Isle of Pain and Love.--Literally, "Beloved birth-pang of Leto." When Leto was about to give birth to her twin children and no land would receive her, the little rock of Delos pitied her and gave her a resting-place.

P. 64, 11. 1106 ff., Ah the old tears.--The singer's mind goes back to her old grief, when her city was taken and she sold as a slave from market to market till she reached Thoas. Then comes the thought of Iphigenia's happy voyage to Greece and freedom; then a dream-like longing to fly home, to watch the dances where once she danced for the prize of beauty.

P. 67, 1. 1156, Iphigenia enters, carrying the Image.--It would probably be a sort of Palladion--a rough figure with a shield (originally typifying the moon?), not very large. She would probably hold it in a robe of some sort, that her bare hand might not touch a thing so holy. At sight of Thoas she would probably cover it up altogether. It is not quite clear when she puts the image down.

P. 67, 1. 1161, I unsay that word.--It was a bad omen for Thoas to say at so critical a moment that a rule was broken. The priestess declares the word unsaid--just the opposite of "accepting" an omen.--Dr. Verrall, however, suggests to me that the line means, "I ask Hosia (the spirit of Holiness) to take in charge what I am going to say"; i.e. all the falsehoods into which she is about to plunge.

This scene of the fooling of Thoas is full of wit and double meanings. The end of it is rather like the famous scene in Forget- me-not, where the Corsican avenger is induced to turn his back in order to let a lady pass out of the room without being seen and compromised, the lady in question being really the person whom he has sworn to kill.

P. 72, 11. 1203 ff.--This change of metre denotes increasing tension of excitement.

Each individual invention of Iphigenia seems clearly to have its purpose. She wants to combine a great appearance of precaution against the escape of the strangers--hence the soldiers, the bonds, &c.--with the greatest possible reality of precaution against any one preventing their escape: hence she takes the soldiers without an officer, the townsfolk are forbidden to follow or even to look, and the King is left at the Temple. The exact motive of all the veiling I do not see; perhaps it adds to the effect to represent Thoas as deliberately hiding his eyes while he is deceived. But in any case her precautions all seem sound according to ancient theology.

P. 77, 11. 1235, 1282, Oh, fair the fruits of Leto blow, &c.--A curious and rather difficult little ritual hymn explaining how Apollo came from Delos to Delphi. It acts more as an interlude than anything else, to fill the time until we learn the issue of the attempt at escape.

All Delphi originally belonged to Mother Earth. The oracles were given by her daughter Themis, and the place guarded by an ancient earth-born Dragon. Apollo came, slew the Dragon, and turned Themis away. Earth took revenge upon him in a curious manner: she invented Dreams, which told the future freely, though, it would seem, confusedly, and, so to speak, spoiled the trade of Delphi until Apollo appealed to Zeus for protection.--The story is not very creditable to the gods, and is expressly denied by Aeschylus on that ground. According to them there was never any strife; Earth, Themis, Phoebe peacefully succeeded one another at Delphi, and Phoebe gave it as a birth-gift to Phoebus or Apollo.

I think the story is probably a case of the infant Sun slaying the Serpent of darkness. The ancient identification of Phoebus Apollo with the sun and Artemis Hecate with the moon seems to me to withstand all modern criticisms, though of course there are many other elements combined with the Sun and Moon elements.

P. 79, 1. 1284, Messenger.--This excited rush upon the stage of a man clamouring for the King is very clever as a next step in the story. One sees at once the sort of thing that has happened, and wants to know what exactly.

P. 80, 1. 1302, "This good messenger."--There is nothing to tell us what the good messenger is. Probably a large sacred knocker, such as were often on temple doors. (They served for suppliants to catch hold of as well as for summoning the people inside.) But it may be a gong or a horn hanging by the door, or the like.

P. 82, 1. 1325, Aye tell thy tale.--It is perhaps a little awkward that Thoas should ask for the whole story before taking any steps to pursue Iphigenia. But partly he is so amazed that he wants to hear all he can before moving; partly, he is represented as being really sure of his prey, as king of all the Taurian seas.

P. 83, 1. 1350, The prow was held by stay-poles.--The ship was afloat, having been just dragged off the shore, bow forwards. The men were raising the anchor, and holding the prow steady by long punt-poles. The ladder seems to have been a rope-ladder; but the Greek is difficult, and I do not know of any mention of a rope- ladder elsewhere in Greek literature.

P. 84, 1. 1384, The Maid of Argos and the carven wood of Heaven-- Observe how closely Iphigenia and the image are united. She appears with it in her arms; she must fly together with it, or die; she and the image enter the ship together. There is religion behind this. Perhaps there was some old statue of the goddess carrying her own image, as Athena sometimes carries a Palladion; when Iphigenia became the priestess and Artemis the goddess, this was interpreted as the priestess carrying the goddess' image.

P. 85, 1. 1415, There is One who rules the sea.--Poseidon, the sea god, was traditionally a friend of Troy. See the first scene of The Trojan Women.

P. 86, 1. 1435, ATHENA.--Modern readers complain a good deal of this appearance of the God from the Machine. Some day I hope to discuss the Deus ex Machina at length, but in the meantime I would point out the following facts: 1. A theophany or appearance of a god seems to have been in the essence of the original conception of Greek Drama; a study of the fragments of Aeschylus will illustrate this. What Euripides did, apparently, was to invent, or use when invented, an improved kind of stage machinery for introducing the god in the air. 2. The theophany seems to have been effective with the Greek audience, and I believe it would usually be so with any audience that was not highly sophisticated and accustomed to associate such appearances with pantomime fairies. 3. In nearly all cases the god who appears not only speaks lines of great beauty and serenity, but also comes with counsel and comfort which have something of heaven about them. The Dioscori of the Electra are most typical, healing the agony of revenge by sheer forgiveness; the beautiful Artemis of the Hippolytus is different, but divine also. But every case needs its special treatment.

P. 87, 1. 1457, Artemis the Tauropole.--On the rite of Artemis Tauropolos at Halae, see Preface, p. vi. There is a play on words in "Tauropole"; it is interesting to see that Euripides has prepared for it as early as Orestes' first speech, 11. 84 f., though I did not think it worth representing in English there.

HECUBA (Translated by Michael Wodhull, 1782; text of the 1888 Morley edition)

HECUBA.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

POLYDORE’S GHOST. HECUBA. CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN DAMES. POLYXENA. ULYSSES. FEMALE ATTENDANT OF HECUBA. AGAMEMNON. POLYMESTOR. TALTHYBIUS.

SCENE.—THE THRACIAN CHERSONESUS.

THE GHOST OF POLYDORE.

Leaving the cavern of the dead, and gates Of darkness, where from all the gods apart Dwells Pluto, come I Polydore, the son Of Hecuba from royal Cisseus sprung, And Priam, who, when danger threatened Troy, Fearing his city by the Grecian arms Would be laid low in dust, from Phrygia’s realm In privacy conveyed me to the house Of Polymestor, of his Thracian friend, Who tills the Chersonesus’ fruitful soil, Ruling a nation famed for generous steeds; But secretly, with me, abundant gold My father sent, that his surviving children Might lack no sustenance, if Ilion’s walls Should by the foe be levelled with the ground. I was the youngest of all Priam’s sons, By stealth he therefore sent me from the realm; Nor could my feeble arm sustain the shield, Or launch the javelin; but while yet entire Each ancient landmark on our frontiers stood, The turrets of the Phrygian state remained Unshaken, and my brother Hector’s spear Prospered in battle; nurtured by the man Of Thrace, my father’s friend, I, wretched youth, Grew like a vigorous scion. But when Troy, When Hector failed, when my paternal dome Was from its basis rent, and Priam’s self, My aged father, at the altar bled Which to the gods his pious hands had reared, Butchered by curst Achilles’ ruthless son; Me, his unhappy guest, my father’s friend Slew for the sake of gold, and having slain, Plunged me into the sea, that he might keep Those treasures in his house. My breathless corse, In various eddies by the rising waves Of ocean tost, lies on the craggy shore, Unwept, unburied. But by filial love For Hecuba now prompted, I ascend A disembodied ghost, and thrice have seen The morning dawn, to Chersonesus land, Since my unhappy mother came from Troy. But all the Grecian army, in their ships, Here anchoring on this coast of Thrace remain Inactive; for appearing on his tomb Achilles, Peleus’ son, restrained the troops, Who homeward else had steered their barks, and claims Polyxena my sister, as a victim Most precious at his sepulchre to bleed; And her will he obtain, nor will his friends Withhold the gift; for fate this day decrees That she shall die: my mother must behold Two of her slaughtered children’s corses, mine, And this unhappy maid’s—that in a tomb I may be lodged, where the firm beach resists The waves, I to her servant will appear, Since from the powers of hell I have obtained The privilege of honourable interment, And that a mother’s hand these rites perform: I shall accomplish what my soul desired. But on the aged Hecuba’s approach, Far hence must I retreat; for from the tent Of Agamemnon she comes forth, alarmed By my pale spectre. O my wretched mother, How art thou torn from princely roofs to view This hour of servitude! what sad reverse Of fortune! some malignant god hath balanced Thy present misery ’gainst thy former bliss.

[Exit.

HECUBA, attended by TROJAN DAMSELS.

HEC. Forth from these doors, ye gentle virgins, lead me, A weak old woman: O ye nymphs of Troy, Support your fellow-servant, once your queen Bear me along, uphold my tottering frame, And take me by this aged hand; your arm Shall be my staff to lean on, while I strive My tardy pace to quicken. O ye lightnings Of Jove, O Night in tenfold darkness wrapt, By such terrific phantoms from my couch Why am I scared? Thou venerable earth, Parent of dreams that flit on raven wing; The vision I abhor, which I in sleep This night have seen, relating to my son, Who here is fostered in the Thracian realm, And to Polyxena my dearest daughter; For I too clearly saw and understood The meaning of that dreadful apparition; Ye tutelary gods of this domain, Preserve the only anchor of our house, My son, who dwells in Thracian fields, o’erspread With snow, protected by his father’s friend. Some fresh event awaits us, and ere long By accents most unwelcome shall the ear Of wretchedness be wounded: till this hour, By such incessant horrors, such alarms, My soul was never seized. Where shall I view The soul of Helenus, on whom the god Bestowed prophetic gifts, ye Phrygian maids? Where my Cassandra to unfold the dream? With bloody fangs I saw a wolf, who slew A dappled hind, which forcibly he tore From these reluctant arms, and what increased My fears, was this—Achilles’ spectre stalked Upon the summit of his tomb, and claimed A gift, some miserable Trojan captive. You therefore I implore, ye gods, avert Such doom from my loved daughter.

CHORUS, HECUBA.

CHOR. I to thee, To thee, O Hecuba, with breathless speed, Fly from the tents of our imperious lords, Where I by lot have been assigned, and doomed To be a slave, driven by the pointed spear From Troy; by their victorious arms the Greeks Have made me captive: nothing can I bring, Thy sorrows to alleviate; but to thee Laden with heaviest tidings am I come The herald of affliction. For ’tis said, Greece in full council hath resolved thy daughter A victim to Achilles shall be given. The warrior mounting on his tomb, thou know’st, Appeared in golden armour, and restrained The fleet just ready to unfurl its sails, Exclaiming, “Whither would ye steer your course, Ye Greeks, and leave no offering on my grave?” A storm of violent contention rose, And two opinions in the martial synod Of Greece went forth; the victim, some maintained, Ought on the sepulchre to bleed, and some Such offering disapproved. But Agamemnon, Who shares the bed of the Prophetic Dame, Espoused thy interest; while the sons of Theseus, Branches from the Athenian root, discussed The question largely in each point of view, But in the same opinion both concurred, And said that never should Cassandra’s love To great Achilles’ valour be preferred: Equally balanced the debate still hung, When he, that crafty orator, endued With sweetest voice, the favourite of the crowd, Laertes’ son, persuaded all the host, Not to reject the first of Grecian chiefs, And yield the preference to a victim slave: Lest some vindictive ghost, before the throne Of Proserpine arising, might relate How Greece, unmindful of her generous sons, Who nobly perished for their native land, From Ilion’s fields departed. In a moment Ulysses will come hither, from thy breast, And aged arms to drag the tender maid. But to the temples, to the altars, go, In suppliant posture clasp Atrides’ knees, Invoke the gods of heaven and hell beneath, For either thou wilt by thy prayers avert Thy daughter’s fate, else must thou at the tomb Behold the virgin fall distained with gore, And gushing from her neck a crimson stream.

HEC. Wretch that I am! ah me! what clamorous sounds, What words, what plaints, what dirges shall I find, Expressive of the anguish which I feel? Opprest by miserable old age, bowed down Under a load of servitude too heavy To be endured: what sanctuary remains, What valiant race, what city will protect me? The hoary Priam is no more, my sons Are now no more. Or to this path, or that, Shall I direct my steps? or whither go? Where shall I find some tutelary god? Ye Phrygian captives, messengers of ill, O ye who with unwelcome tidings fraught, Come hither, ye have ruined me. The orb Of day shall never rise to fill this breast With any comfort more. Ye luckless feet, Bear an infirm old woman to the tent Of our captivity. Come forth, my daughter, Come forth and listen to thy mother’voice, That thou may’st know the rumour I have heard, In which thy life is interested.

POLYXENA, HECUBA, CHORUS.

POLYX. O mother, What mean you by those shrieks? what fresh event Proclaiming, from my chamber, like a bird, Have you constrained me, urged by fear, to speed My flight?

HEC. Ah, daughter!

POLYX. With foreboding voice, Why do you call me? these are evil omens.

HEC. Alas! thy life, Polyxena.

POLYX. Speak out, Nor aggravate the horrors yet untold By long suspense. I fear, O mother, much I fear. What mean those oft repeated groans?

HEC. Thou child of a most miserable mother!

POLYX. Why speak you thus?

HEC. The Greeks, with one consent, Resolve that on the tomb of Peleus’ son Thou shalt be sacrificed.

POLYX. What boundless woes Are these which to your daughter you announce! Yet, O my mother, with the tale proceed.

HEC. Of a most horrible report I speak, Which says, that, by the suffrage of the Greeks, It is resolved to take away thy life.

POLYX. O, my unhappy mother, doomed to suffer Wrongs the most dreadful, doomed to lead a life Of utter wretchedness: what grievous curse, Such as no language can express, on you Hath some malignant demon hurled! no more Can I, your daughter, share the galling yoke Of servitude with your forlorn old age; For like some lion’s whelp, or heifer bred Upon the mountains, hurried from your arms Shall you behold me, and with severed head Consigned to Pluto’s subterraneous realms Of darkness, there among the silent dead, Wretch that I am, shall I be laid. These tears Of bitter lamentation I for you, For you, O mother, shed; but my own life I heed not, nor the shame, nor fatal stroke, For I in death a happier lot obtain.

CHOR. To thee, O Hecuba, with hasty step Behold Ulysses some new message brings.

ULYSSES, HECUBA, POLYXENA, CHORUS.

ULY. Though I presume the counsels of our troops And their decision are already known To thee, O woman, yet must I repeat Th’ unwelcome tidings; at Achilles’ tomb, Polyxena, thy daughter, have the Greeks Resolved to slay; me to attend the virgin Have they commanded: but Achilles’ son Is at the altar destined to preside, And be the priest. Know’st thou thy duty then? Constrain us not to drag her from those arms With violence, nor strive with me; but learn The force of thy inevitable woes: For there is wisdom, e’en when we are wretched, In following reason’s dictates.

HEC. Now, alas! It seems a dreadful struggle is at hand, With groans abounding and unnumbered tears. I died not at the time I ought to die, Neither did Jove destroy me; he still spares My life, that I may view fresh woes, yet greater, Wretch that I am, than all my former woes. But if a slave, who not with bitter taunt, Or keen reproach, her questions doth propose, Might speak to freemen, now ’tis time for you To cease, and give me audience while I ask——

ULY. Allowed, proceed; for I without reluctance Will grant thee time.

HEC. Remember you when erst You came to Troy a spy, in tattered garb Disguised, and from your eyes upon your beard Fell tears extorted by the dread of death?

ULY. I well remember: for by that event My inmost heart was touched.

HEC. But Helen knew you, And told me only.

ULY. I can ne’er forget Into what danger I was fallen.

HEC. My knees You in a lowly posture did embrace.

ULY. And to thy garment clung with faltering hand.

HEC. At length I saved and from our land dismissed you.

ULY. Hence I the solar beams yet view.

HEC. What language Did you then hold, when subject to my power?

ULY. Full many were the words which I devised To save my life.

HEC. Doth not your guilt appear From your own counsels? Though your tongue avows The generous treatment you from me received No benefit on me do you confer, But strive to harm me. O ungrateful race Of men, who aim at popular applause By your smooth speeches; would to Heaven I ne’er Had known you, for ye heed not how ye wound Your friends, whene’er ye can say ought to win The crowd. But what pretence could they devise For sentencing this virgin to be slain? Are they constrained by fate, with human victims, To drench the tomb on which they rather ought To sacrifice the steer? or doth Achilles Demand her life with justice, to retaliate Slaughter on them who slaughtered? But to him Hath she done nought injurious. He should claim Helen as victim at his tomb, for she His ruin caused by leading him to Troy. If it was needful that some chosen captive Distinguished by transcendent charms should die, We were not meant; for the perfidious daughter Of Tyndarus is most beauteous, and her crimes To ours at least are equal. Justice only In this debate supports me: hear how large The debt which ’tis your duty to repay On my petition: you confess you touched My hand, and these my aged cheeks, in dust Grovelling a suppliant; yours I now embrace, From you the kindness which I erst bestowed Again implore, and sue to you: O tear not My daughter from these arms, nor slay the maid: Sufficient is the number of the slain. In her I yet rejoice, in her forget My woes; she, for the loss of many children, Consoles me, I in her a country find, A nurse, a staff, a guide. The mighty ought not To issue lawless mandates, nor should they, On whom propitious fortunes now attend, Think that their triumphs will for ever last: For I was happy once, but am no more, My bliss all vanished in a single day. Yet, O my friend, revere and pity me, Go to the Grecian host, admonish them How horrible an action ’twere to slay These captive women whom at first ye spared, And pitied when ye dragged them from the altars. For by your laws ’tis equally forbidden To spill the blood of freemen, or of slave. Although you weakly argue, will your rank Convince them: for the self-same speech, when uttered By the ignoble, and men well esteemed, Comes not with equal force.

CHOR. The human soul Is not so flinty as to hear the woes And plaintive strains thou lengthen’st out, nor shed The sympathizing tear.

ULY. To me attend, O Hecuba, nor through resentment deem That from a foe such counsels can proceed: I am disposed to save thee, and now hold No other language: but will not deny What I to all have said; since Troy is taken, On the first warrior of the host who asks A victim, should thy daughter be bestowed. The cause why many cities are diseased Is this: the brave and generous man obtains No honourable distinction to exalt him Above the coward. But from us, O woman, Achilles claims such homage, who for Greece Died nobly. Is not this a foul reproach, If, while our friends yet live, we seek their aid, But after death ungratefully forget Past services? Should armed bands once more Assemble, and renew the bloody strife, Will not some hardy veteran thus exclaim: “Shall we go forth to battle, or indulge The love of life, now we have seen the dead Obtain no honours?” While from day to day I live, though I have little, yet that little For every needful purpose will suffice. But may conspicuous trophies o’er my grave Be planted, for such tribute to my name Will last to after-ages. If thou call Thy sufferings piteous, hear what in reply We have to urge; amidst the Grecian camp Are many aged dames, as miserable As thou art, with full many a hoary sire, And weeping bride, torn from her valiant lord, O’er whose remains hath Ida’s dust been strewn. Support thy woes: if with mistaken zeal We have resolved to honour the deceased, Our crime is ignorance: but ye barbarians Pay no distinction to your friends, no homage To the illustrious dead; hence Greece prevails; But ye from your pernicious counsels reap The bitter fruits they merit.

CHOR. Ah, what ills Ever attend the captive state, subdued By brutal violence, and forced t’ endure Unseemly wrongs.

HEC. Those words I vainly spoke Thy slaughter to avert, in air were lavished; But, O my daughter, if thy power exceed Thy mother’s, like the nightingale send forth Each warbled note, to save thy life, excite, By falling at his knees, Ulysses’ pity, And on this ground, because he too hath children, Entreat him to compassionate thy doom.

POLYX. I see thee, O Ulysses, thy right hand Beneath thy robe concealing, see thee turn Thy face away, lest I should touch thy beard. Be of good cheer; I’ll not call down the wrath Of Jove who guards the suppliant, but will follow Thy steps, because necessity ordains And ’tis my wish to die; if I were loth, I should appear to be an abject woman, And fond of life: but what could lengthened life Avail to me, whose father erst was lord Of the whole Phrygian realm? Thus first I drew My breath beneath the roofs of regal domes; Then was I nurtured with the flattering hope That I should wed a monarch, and arrive At the proud mansion of some happy youth. Ill-fated princess, thus I stood conspicuous Amid the dames and brightest nymphs of Troy, In all but immortality a goddess; But now am I a slave, and the first cause Which makes me wish to die, is that abhorred Unwonted name; else some inhuman lord With gold perchance might purchase me, the sister Of Hector, and full many a valiant chief, Might make me knead the bread, and sweep the floor, And ply the loom, and pass my abject days In bitterness of woe: some servile mate Might bring dishonour to my bed, though erst I was deemed worthy of a sceptred king: Not thus. These eyes shall to the last behold The light of freedom. O ye shades receive A princess. Lead me on then, O Ulysses, And as thou lead’st despatch me, for no hope, No ground for thinking, I shall e’er be happy, Can I discern: yet hinder not by word Or deed the steadfast purpose I have formed; But, O my mother, in this wish concur With me, that I may die ere I endure Such wrongs as suit not my exalted rank. For whosoe’er hath not been used to taste Of sorrow, bears indeed the galling yoke, Yet is he grieved, when he to such constraint Submits his neck: but they who die may find A bliss beyond the living; for to live Ignobly were the utmost pitch of shame.

CHOR. A great distinction, and among mankind The most conspicuous, is to spring from sires Renowned for virtue; generous souls hence raise To heights sublimer an ennobled name.

HEC. Thou, O my daughter, well indeed hast spoken; Yet these exalted sentiments of thine To me will cause fresh grief; but, if the son Of Peleus must be gratified, and Greece Avoid reproach, Ulysses, slay not her, But me, conducting to Achilles’ tomb, Transpierce with unrelenting hand. I bore Paris, whose shafts the son of Thetis slew.

ULY. Not thee for victim, O thou aged dame, But her, Achilles’ spectre hath demanded.

HEC. Yet slay me with my daughter; so shall earth, And the deceased who claims these hateful rites, A twofold portion drink of human gore.

ULY. Enough in her of victims; let no more Be added: would to Heaven we were not bound To offer up this one!

HEC. The dread behests Of absolute necessity require, That with my daughter I should die.

ULY. What mean’st thou? I know no lord to counteract my will.

HEC. Her, as the ivy clings around the oak, Will I embrace.

ULY. Not if to wiser counsels Thou yield just deference.

HEC. I will ne’er consent My daughter to release.

ULY. Nor will I go, And leave her here.

POLYX. Attend to me, my mother, And, O thou offspring of Laertes, treat The just emotions of parental wrath With greater mildness. But, O hapless woman, Contend not with our conquerors. Would you fall Upon the earth and wound your aged limbs, Thrust from me forcibly, by youthful arms Torn with disgrace away? Provoke not wrongs Unseemly; O, my dearest mother, give That much-loved hand, and let me join my cheek To yours; for I no longer shall behold The radiant orb of yonder sun. Now take A last farewell, O you who gave me birth; I to the shades descend.

HEC. But I the light Am doomed to view, and still remain a slave.

POLYX. Unwedded, reft of promised bridal joys.

HEC. Thou, O my daughter, claim’st the pitying tear: But I am a most miserable woman.

POLYX. There shall I sleep among the realms beneath, From you secluded.

HEC. What resource, alas! For me, the wretched Hecuba is left? Where shall I finish this detested life?

POLYX. Born free, I die a slave.

HEC. I too, bereft Of all my children.

POLYX. What commands to Hector, Or to your aged husband, shall I bear?

HEC. Tell them I of all women am most wretched.

POLYX. Ye paps which sweetly nourished me——

HEC. Alas! My child’s untimely miserable fate.

POLYX. Farewell, my mother, and my dear Cassandra.

HEC. To others in that language speak; be theirs The happiness thy mother cannot taste.

POLYX. And thou, my brother Polydore, who dwell’st Among the Thracians, famed for generous steeds——

HEC. If yet he live; but this I greatly doubt, Because I am in all respects so wretched.

POLYX. He lives, and when the hour of death is come, Will close your eyes.

HEC. I’m prematurely dead While yet alive, bowed down to earth by woe.

POLYX. Now bear me hence, Ulysses, o’er my face Casting a veil: for ere I at the altar Am slain, this heart is melted by the plaints Of my dear mother, and my tears augment Her sorrows. O thou radiant light; for still Am I permitted to invoke thy name, But can enjoy thee only till I meet The lifted sword, and reach Achilles’ tomb.

[Exeunt ULYSSES and POLYXENA.

HEC. I faint, my limbs are all unnerved; return, My daughter, let me touch that hand once more, Leave me not childless. O, my friends, I perish; Ah, would to Heaven I could see Spartan Helen, In the same state, that sister to the sons Of Jove, for by her beauteous eyes was Troy, That prosperous city, with disgrace o’erthrown.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I. 1.

Ye breezes, who the ships convey, That long becalmed at anchor lay, Nor dared to quit the strand; As the swift keel divides the wave, Say whither am I borne a slave, Ordained to tread the Doric land, Or Phthia, where beset with reeds, Apidanus, the sire of limpid rills, Winding a-down the channelled hills, Waters the fruitful meads?

I. 2.

Or to that isle, with dashing oar Impelled, shall I my woes deplore, And on the sacred earth, Where first the palm and laurel rose, Memorials of Latona’s throes, Which to the twins divine gave birth, Teach the harmonious strain to flow; With Delos’ nymphs Diana’s praise resound, Her hair with golden fillet bound, And never-erring bow?

II. 1.

Or, pent in some Athenian tower, Devoted to Minerva’s power, On the robe’s tissued ground While, shadowed by my needle, spread Expressive forms, in vivid thread, Picture the goddess whirling round Her chariot with unrivalled speed; Or represent the Titan’s impious crew, Whom Jove’s red lightnings overthrew, Those monsters doomed to bleed?

II. 2.

Alas! my sons, a valiant band, My fathers, and my native land, Ye shared the general fate. Sacked by the Greeks, Troy’s bulwarks smoke, But I, constrained to bear the yoke, Shall soon behold some foreign state, To ignominious bondage led; And leaving vanquished Asia Europe’s slave, Debarred an honourable grave, Ascend the victor’s bed.

TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS.

TAL. Where, O ye Phrygian damsels, shall I find The wretched Hecuba, who erst was queen Of Ilion?

CHOR. Prostrate near you on the ground, Wrapt in her mantle, there she lies.

TAL. Great Jove! What shall I say? that thou from Heaven look’st down Upon mankind, or have they rashly formed A vain opinion, deeming that the race Of gods exist, though fortune governs all? Ha! was not this the queen of wealthy Phrygia, And was not she the happy Priam’s wife? But her whole city by the hostile spear Is now destroyed, while she a slave, bowed down By age, and childless, stretched upon the ground, Defiles with dust her miserable head. Old as I am, yet gladly would I die Rather than sink into abhorred disgrace. Arise, unhappy woman, O lift up That feeble body, and that hoary head.

HEC. Away! O suffer this decrepit frame To rest. Why move me! Whosoe’er thou art, What mean’st thou? why dost thou molest th’ afflicted?

TAL. Talthybius: me, the herald of the Greeks, O woman, Agamemnon hath despatched To fetch you.

HEC. Com’st thou, by the Greeks ordained, My friend, to slay me also at the tomb? How welcome were such tidings; let us go, With speed conduct me thither.

TAL. To inter Your daughter, I invite you; both the sons Of Atreus, and the assembled Grecian host, Have sent me for that purpose.

HEC. Ah! what say’st thou? Thou com’st not to inform me I must die, But to unfold the most disastrous tidings. Then art thou lost, my daughter, from the arms Of thy fond mother torn; of thee, my child Am I bereft. But how did ye destroy her, Respectfully, or with the ruthless hand Of hostile rage? Speak, though it wound my soul.

TAL. A second time, in pity to your daughter, You make me weep; for now while I relate Her sufferings, tears bedew these swimming eyes, Such as I shed when at the tomb she perished. To view the sacrifice the Grecian host Were all assembled: taking by the hand Polyxena, on the sepulchral hillock Achilles’ son then placed her: I drew near, Attended by the chosen youths of Greece, To hold the tender victim, and prevent Her struggles. But Achilles’ son, uplifting With both his hands a cup of massive gold, Poured forth libations to his breathless sire; And gave a sign to me, through the whole camp Strict silence to proclaim. I in the midst Stood up and cried: “Be mute, ye Greeks, let none Presume to speak, observe a general silence.” The troops obeyed, and through their crowded ranks Not e’en a breath was heard, while in these words The chief expressed his purpose: “Son of Peleus, My father, the propitiatory drops Of these libations which invite the dead Accept; O come and quaff the crimson blood Of this pure virgin, whom to thee all Greece And I devote; be thou benign, O grant us Securely to weigh anchor, to unbind Our halsers, and on all of us bestow A happy voyage to our native land From vanquished Troy.” He ceased, and in his prayer Joined the whole army, when the chief unsheathed His golden-hilted sword, and gave a sign To chosen youths of Greece to hold the virgin, Which she perceived, and in these words addressed The warriors: “O ye Argives, who laid waste My city, willingly I die, let no man Confine these arms, I with undaunted breast Will meet the stroke. I by the gods conjure you Release, and slay me as my rank demands Like one born free; for I from mighty kings Descend, and in the shades beneath should blush To be accounted an ignoble slave.” Through all the host ran murmurs of assent, And royal Agamemnon bade the youths Release the virgin; they their monarch’s voice, Soon as they heard, obeyed; our lord’s behests The princess too revering, from her shoulder Down to her waist rent off the purple robe, Displayed her bosom like some statue formed In exquisite proportion, and to earth Bending her knee, in these affecting words Expressed herself: “If at my breast thou aim The wound, strike here; if at my neck, that neck Is ready bared.” Half willing, and half loth, Through pity for the maid, he with keen steel Severed the arteries; streams of blood gushed forth: Yet even thus, though at her latest gasp, She showed a strong solicitude to fall With decency, while stood the gazing host Around her: soon as through the ghastly wound Her soul had issued, every Greek was busied In various labours; o’er the corse some strewed The verdant foliage, others reared a pyre With trunks of fir: but he who nothing brought, From him who with funereal ornament Was laden, heard these taunts: “O slothful wretch, Bear’st thou no robe, no garland, hast thou nought To give in honour of this generous maid?” Such their encomiums on thy breathless daughter. You, of all women, who in such a child Were happiest, now most wretched I behold.

CHOR. Fate, the behests of the immortal gods Accomplishing, with tenfold weight hath caused This dreadful curse to fall on Priam’s house, And on our city.

HEC. ’Midst unnumbered ills I know not, O my daughter, whither first To turn my eyes, for if on one I touch, Another hinders me, and I again, By a long train of woes succeeding woes, To some fresh object am from thence called off; Nor can I from my tortured soul efface The grief thy fate occasions; yet the tale Of thy exalted courage checks my groans, Which else had been immoderate. No just cause Have we for wonder, if the barren land Cheered by Heaven’s influence, with benignant suns Yields plenteous harvests, while a richer soil Deprived of every necessary aid Bears weeds alone. But ’midst the human race The wicked man is uniformly wicked, The good still virtuous, nor doth evil fortune Corrupt his soul; the same unsullied worth He still retains. Is this great difference owing To birth, or education? We are taught What virtue is, by being nurtured well, And he who thoroughly hath learnt this lesson, Guided by the unerring rule of right, Can thence discern what’s base.—My soul in vain Hath hazarded these incoherent thoughts. But, O Talthybius, to the Greeks repair, And strict injunctions give, that no man touch My daughter’s corse, but let the gazing crowd Be driven away. For in a numerous host Its multitudes break loose from all restraints, The outrages of mariners exceed Devouring flame, and whosoe’er abstains From mischief, by his comrades is despised. But, O my aged servant, take and dip That urn in ocean’s waves, and hither bring, Filled with its water, that the last sad rites To my departed daughter I may pay, And lave the corse of that unwedded bride, Of that affianced virgin: but alas! Whence with such costly gifts as she deserves, Her tomb can I adorn? My present state Affords them not, but what it doth afford Will I bestow, and from the captive dames Appointed to attend me, who reside Within these tents, some ornaments collect. If, unobserved by their new masters, aught They have secreted. O ye splendid domes, Ye palaces once happy, which contained All that was rich and fair; O Priam thou The sire, and I who was the aged mother Of an illustrious race, how are we dwindled To nothing, stripped of all our ancient pride! Yet do we glory, some in mansions stored With gold abundant, others when distinguished Among the citizens by sounding titles. Vain are the schemes which with incessant care We frame, and all our boastful words are vain. The happiest man is he who, by no ill O’ertaken, passes through life’s fleeting day.

[Exit HECUBA.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I.

By Heaven was my devoted head Menaced with impending ill, What time the pines, whose branches spread Their tutelary shade o’er Ida’s hill, Were laid by Phrygian Paris low, That his adventurous bark might stem the tide, From Sparta’s coast to waft the fairest bride On whom the solar beams their golden radiance throw.

II.

Surrounding labours were at hand Leagued with the behests of fate; Then did such madness seize the land, As called down vengeance from a foreign state. The royal swain with dazzled eyes Gave that decree, the source of all our woes, When from three rival goddesses he chose Bright Venus, and pronounced that she deserved the prize.

III.

The spear and death hence raged around, Hence were my mansions levelled with the ground; Staining with tears Eurotas’ tide, Too deeply grieved to share the victor’s pride, The Spartan virgin too in vain Bewails her favoured youth untimely slain, While, sprinkling ashes o’er their vest And hoary head, the matrons bend O’er their sons’ urns; their groans to Heaven ascend, They tear their cheeks, and beat their miserable breast.

ATTENDANT, CHORUS.

ATT. Where is the wretched Hecuba, my friends, Who in her woes surpasses all, or male, Or of the female race? her none can rob Of her just claim, pre-eminence in grief.

CHOR. With the harsh sounds of that ill-boding tongue, O wretch, what mean’st thou? wilt thou never cease To be th’ unwelcome herald of affliction?

ATT. Most grievous are the tidings which I bring To Hecuba, nor easy were the task In words auspicious to make known to mortals Such dire calamities.

CHOR. From her apartment She seasonably comes forth to give thee audience.

HECUBA, ATTENDANT, CHORUS.

ATT. O most unfortunate, whose woes exceed All that the power of language can express, My queen, you perish, doomed no more to view The blessed light; of children, husband, city, Bereft and ruined.

HEC. Nothing hast thou told But what I knew, thou only com’st t’ insult me: Yet wherefore dost thou bring to me this corse Of my Polyxena, o’er whom ’twas said The Grecian host with pious zeal all vied To heap a tomb?

ATT. She knows not, but laments For the deceased Polyxena alone, And to her recent woes is yet a stranger.

HEC. Ah, bring’st thou the inspired prophetic head, And the dishevelled tresses of Cassandra?

ATT. You speak of one yet living, but bewail not This the deceased: survey the naked corse Of him whose death to you will seem most strange And most unlocked for.

HEC. Ha, I see my son, My dearest Polydore, whom he of Thrace Beneath his roof protected. I am ruined; Now utterly I perish. O my son, For thee, for thee I wake the frantic dirge, By that malignant demon which assumed Thy voice, thy semblance, recently apprized Of this calamity.

ATT. O wretched mother, Know you then what was your son’s fate?

HEC. A sight Incredible and new to me is that Which I behold: for from my former woes Spring woes in long succession, and the day When I shall cease to weep, shall cease to groan, Will never come.

CHOR. The woes which we endure Alas! are dreadful.

HEC. O my son, thou son Of an ill fated mother, by what death Didst thou expire? through what disastrous cause Here liest thou prostrate? ah, what bloody hand——

ATT. I know not; on the shore his corse I found.

HEC. Cast up by the impetuous waves, or pierced With murderous spear?

ATT. The surges of the deep Had thrown it on the sand.

HEC. Alas! too well I comprehend the meaning of the dream Which to these eyes appeared: the spectre borne On sable pinions no illusion proved, When, O my son, thee, thee it represented No longer dwelling in the realms of light.

CHOR. Instructed by that vision, canst thou name The murderer?

HEC. ’Twas my friend, the Thracian king, With whom in secrecy his aged sire Had placed him.

CHOR. Ha! what mean’st thou? to possess That gold by slaying him?

HEC. O, ’twas a deed Unutterable, a deed without a name, Surpassing all astonishment, unholy, And not to be endured. Where now the laws Of hospitality? Accursed man, How cruelly hast thou with reeking sword Transpierced this unresisting boy, nor heard The gentle voice of pity!

CHOR. Hapless queen, How hath some demon, thy malignant foe, Rendered thee of all mortals the most wretched: But I behold great Agamemnon come, And therefore, O my friends, let us be silent.

AGAMEMNON, HECUBA, CHORUS.

AGA. Whence this delay? why go you not t’ inter, O Hecuba, your daughter, whom Talthybius Directed that no Greek might be allowed To touch? We therefore have with your request Complied, nor moved the corse. But you remain Inactive, which I wonder at, and come To fetch you, for each previous solemn rite That best might please, if aught such rites can please, Have we performed. But ah, what Trojan youth Do I behold lie breathless in the tent? For that he was no Greek, the garb informs me In which he’s clad.

HEC. Thou wretch, for of myself I speak, when thee, O Hecuba, I name; What shall I do, at Agamemnon’s knees Fall prostrate, or in silence bear my woes?

AGA. Why weep, with face averted, yet refuse T’ inform me what hath happened? who is he?

HEC. But from his knees, if, deeming me a slave And enemy, the monarch should repel me, This would but make my sorrows yet more poignant.

AGA. I am no seer, nor can I uninformed Trace out the secret purpose of your soul.

HEC. Am I mistaken then, while I suppose A foe in him who doth not mean me ill?

AGA. If ’tis your wish I should not be apprized, We both are of one mind; you will not speak, And I as little am disposed to hear.

HEC. Without his aid no vengeance for my child Can I obtain: yet why deliberate thus? Prosper or fail I must take courage now. O royal Agamemnon, by those knees A suppliant I conjure you, by that beard, And that right hand, victorious o’er your foes.

AGA. What do you wish for? To obtain your freedom? This were not difficult.

HEC. No, give me vengeance On yonder guilty wretch, and I am willing To linger out the remnant of my life In servitude.

AGA. Then why implore our aid?

HEC. For reasons you suspect not. Do you see That breathless corse o’er which my tears I shed?

AGA. The corse I see; but cannot comprehend What follows next.

HEC. Him erst I bore and nurtured.

AGA. Is the deceased, O miserable dame, One of your children?

HEC. Not of those who fell Beneath Troy’s walls.

AGA. What! had you other sons?

HEC. Yes, him you see, born in an evil hour.

AGA. But where was he when Ilion was destroyed?

HEC. His father, apprehensive of his death, Conveyed him thence.

AGA. From all the other children Which then he had, where placed he this apart?

HEC. In this same region where his corse was found.

AGA. With Polymestor, sovereign of the land?

HEC. He, to preserve that execrable gold, Was hither sent.

AGA. But, by what ruthless hand, And how, was he despatched?

HEC. By whom beside? The murderer was his friend, the Thracian king.

AGA. Was he thus eager? O abandoned wretch, To seize the gold!

HEC. E’en thus; soon as he knew Troy was o’erthrown.

AGA. But where did you discover The body, or who brought it?

HEC. On the shore This servant found it.

AGA. Or in quest of him Or other task then busied?

HEC. To fetch water To lave Polyxena’s remains she went.

AGA. When he had slain him, it appears, his friend Did cast him forth.

HEC. He to the waves consigned The stripling’s mangled corse.

AGA. O wretched woman, Surrounded by immeasurable woes.

HEC. I am undone; no farther ill remains For me t’ experience.

AGA. Ah! what woman e’er Was born to such calamities?

HEC. Not one Exists, whose sorrows equal mine, unless You of Calamity herself would speak. Yet hear the motive why I clasp your knees. If I appear to merit what I suffer, I must be patient; but if not, avenge My wrongs upon the man who ’gainst his guest Such treachery could commit, who, nor the gods Of Erebus beneath, nor those who rule In Heaven above regarding, this vile deed, Did perpetrate, e’en he with whom I oft Partook the feast, on whom I showered each bounty, Esteeming him the first of all my friends; Yet, when at Ilion’s palace with respect He had been treated, a deliberate scheme Of murder forming, he destroyed my son, On whom he deigned not to bestow a tomb, But threw his corse into the briny deep. Though I indeed am feeble, and a slave, Yet mighty are the gods, and by their law The world is ruled: for by that law we learn That there are gods, and can mark out the bounds Of justice and injustice; if such law To you transmitted, be infringed, if they Who kill their guests, or dare with impious hand To violate the altars of the gods, Unpunished ’scape, no equity is left Among mankind. Deeming such base connivance Unworthy of yourself, revere my woes, Have pity on me, like a painter take Your stand to view me, and observe the number Of my afflictions; once was I a queen, But now am I a slave; in many a son I once was rich, but now am I both old And of my children reft, without a city, Forlorn, and of all mortals the most wretched. But whither would you go? With you I seem To have no interest. Miserable me! Why do we mortals by assiduous toil, And such a painful search as their importance Makes requisite, all other arts attain, Yet not enough intent on the due knowledge Of that sole empress of the human soul Persuasion, no rewards bestow on those Who teach us by insinuating words How to procure our wishes? who can trust Hereafter in prosperity? That band Of my heroic sons is now no more, Myself a captive, am led forth to tasks Unseemly, and e’en now these eyes behold The air obscured by Ilion’s rising smoke. It might be vain perhaps, were I to found A claim to your assistance on your love: Yet must I speak: my daughter, who in Troy Was called Cassandra, the prophetic dame, Partakes your bed; and how those rapturous nights Will you acknowledge, or to her how show Your gratitude for all the fond embraces Which she bestows, O king, or in her stead To me her mother? In the soul of man Th’ endearments of the night, by darkness veiled, Create the strongest interest. To my tale Now listen: do you see that breathless corse? Each act of kindness which to him is shown, Upon a kinsman of the dame you love Will be conferred. But, in one point my speech Is yet deficient. By the wondrous arts Of Dædalus, or some benignant god, Could I give voice to each arm, hand, and hair, And each extremest joint, they round your knees Should cling together, and together weep, At once combining with a thousand tongues. O monarch, O thou light of Greece, comply, And stretch forth that avenging arm to aid An aged woman, though she be a thing Of nought, O succour: for the good man’s duty Is to obey the dread behests of justice, And ever punish those who act amiss.

CHOR. ’Tis wonderful, indeed, how all events Happen to mortals, and the dread behests Of fate, uncircumscribed by human laws, Constrain us to form amities with those To whom the most inveterate hate we bore, And into foes convert our former friends.

AGA. To you, O Hecuba, your son, your fortunes, And your entreaties, is my pity due. I in obedience to the gods and justice Wish to avenge you on this impious friend, Could I appear your interests to espouse, Without the troops suspecting that I slay The Thracian monarch for Cassandra’s sake: My terrors hence arise; the host esteem Him our ally, and the deceased a foe: What though you held him dear, his fate, the loss Of you alone, affects not the whole camp. Reflect too, that you find me well disposed To share your toils, and in your cause exert My utmost vigour; but, what makes me slow, Is a well-grounded fear of blame from Greece.

HEC. Alas! there’s no man free: for some are slaves To gold, to fortune others, and the rest, The multitude or written laws restrain From acting as their better judgment dictates. But since you are alarmed, and to the rabble Yield an implicit deference, from that fear I will release you; only to my schemes Be privy, if some mischief I contrive Against the murderer of my son: but take No active part. If, when the Thracian suffers, As he shall suffer, ’mongst the Greeks a tumult Break forth, or they attempt to succour him, Restrain them, without seeming to befriend My interests. As for what remains, rely On me, and I will manage all things well.

AGA. How then? what mean you? With that aged hand To wield a sword, and take away the life Of that barbarian, or by drugs endued With magic power? the help you need, what arts Can furnish? what strong arm have you to fight Your battles? whence will you procure allies?

HEC. These tents conceal a group of Trojan dames.

AGA. Mean you those captives whom the Greeks have seized.

HEC. With them I on the murderer will inflict Due punishment.

AGA. How can the female sex O’er men obtain a conquest?

HEC. Numbers strike A foe with terror, and the wiles of women Are hard to be withstood.

AGA. They may strike terror, But in their courage I no trust can place.

HEC. What? did not women slay Ægyptus’ sons, And in their rage exterminate each male From Lemnos? But leave me to find out means How to effect my purpose. Through the camp In safety this my faithful servant send; And thou, when to my Thracian friend thou com’st, Say, “Hecuba, erst Queen of Troy, invites Thee and thy children, on thy own account, No less than hers, because she to thy sons And thee the self-same message must deliver.” The newly slain Polyxena’s interment Defer, O Agamemnon; in one flame That when their kindred corses are consumed; The brother with the sister, who demand A twofold portion of their mother’s grief Together may be buried in one grave.

AGA. These rites shall be performed, which could the troops Set sail, I needs must have denied: but now, Since Neptune sends not an auspicious breeze, Expecting a more seasonable voyage, Here must we wait. But may success attend you; For ’tis the common interest of mankind, Of every individual, every state, That he who hath transgressed should suffer ill. And fortune crown the efforts of the virtuous.

[Exit AGAMEMNON.

CHORUS.

I. 1.

No more, O Troy, thy dreaded name Conspicuous in the lists of fame, ’Midst fortresses impregnable shall stand, In such thick clouds an armed host Pours terrors from the Grecian coast. And wastes thy vanquished land: Shorn from thy rampired brow the crown Of turrets fell; thy palaces o’erspread With smoke lie waste, no more I tread Thy wonted streets, my native town.

I. 2.

I perished at the midnight hour, When, aided by the banquet’s power, Sleep o’er my eyes his earliest influence shed; Retiring from the choral song, The sacrifice and festive throng, Stretched on the downy bed The bridegroom indolently lay, His massive spear suspended on the beam, No more he saw the helmets gleam. Or nautic troops in dread array.

II. 1.

While me the golden mirror’s aid, My flowing tresses taught to braid In graceful ringlets with a fillet bound, Just as I cast my robe aside, And sought the couch; extending wide Through every street this sound Was heard; “O when, ye sons of Greece, This nest of robbers levelled with the plain, Will ye behold your homes again? When shall these tedious labours cease?”

II. 2.

Then from my couch up starting, drest Like Spartan nymph in zoneless vest, At Dian’s shrine an ineffectual prayer Did I address; for hither led, First having viewed my husband dead, Full oft I in despair, As the proud vessel sailed from land, Looked back, and saw my native walls laid low, Then fainting with excess of woe At length lost sight of Ilion’s strand.

III.

Helen that sister to the sons of Jove, And Paris Ida’s swain, With my curses still pursuing, For to them I owe my ruin, Me they from my country drove, Never to return again, By that detested spousal rite On which Hymen never smiled, No, ’twas some demon who with lewd delight Their frantic souls beguiled: Her may ocean’s waves no more Waft to her paternal shore.

POLYMESTOR, HECUBA, CHORUS.

POLYM. For thee, O Priam, my unhappy friend, And you, my dearest Hecuba, I weep, Beholding your distress, your city taken, Your daughter newly slain: alas! there’s nought To be relied on; fame is insecure, Nor can the prosperous their enjoyments guard Against a change of Fortune, for the gods Backward and forward turn her wavering wheel, And introduce confusion in the world, That we, because we know not will happen, May worship them. But of what use are plaints Which have no virtue to remove our woes? If you my absence censure, be appeased, For in the midst of Thracia’s wide domains I from these coasts was distant at the time Of your arrival: soon as I returned, When from the palace I was issuing forth, This your attendant met me, and delivered The message, hearing which, I hither came.

HEC. O Polymestor, wretched as I am, I blush to see thy face; because thou erst In happier days didst know me, I with shame Appear before thee in my present fortunes. Nor can I look at thee with steadfast eyes: But this thou wilt not deem to be a mark Of enmity: the cause of such behaviour Is only custom, which forbids our sex To gaze on men.

POLYM. No wonder you thus act Under such circumstances. But what need Have you of me, and wherefore did you send To fetch me from the palace?

HEC. I in private A secret of importance would disclose To thee and to thy children. From these tents Give orders for thy followers to depart.

POLYM. [to his attendants, who retire.] Withdraw; this solitary spot is safe. For you and the confederate Grecian host Are all attached to me. But ’tis incumbent On you t’ inform me what my prosperous fortunes Can yield to succour my unhappy friends! For this is what I wish to do.

HEC. Say first, If he, my son, whom this maternal hand And his fond father in thy mansions placed, My Polydore, yet live. I’ll then pursue My questions.

POLYM. Yes, in him you still are blest.

HEC. How kind, how worthy of thyself that speech, My dearest friend!

POLYM. What farther would you know?

HEC. If haply yet the youth remember aught Of me his mother.

POLYM. Much he wished to come And visit you in private.

HEC. Is the gold He brought from Troy preserved?

POLYM. I keep it safe In my own palace.

HEC. Keep it if thou wilt: But covet not the treasures of thy friends.

POLYM. I do not covet them; my utmost wish Is to enjoy, O woman, what I have.

HEC. Know’st thou then, what to thee and to thy sons I want to say?

POLYM. I know not; till in words Your thoughts are signified.

HEC. Bestow such love On Polydore as thou receiv’st from me.

POLYM. What is it that to me and to my children You would disclose?

HEC. The spot, where deep in earth, The ancient treasures of all Priam’s house Lie buried.

POLYM. Is this secret what you wish Should to your son be mentioned?

HEC. Yes, by thee, Because thou art a virtuous man!

POLYM. But wherefore Did you require these children should be present?

HEC. For them to know the secret, if thou die, Will be of great advantage.

POLYM. You have spoken Well and discreetly.

HEC. Know’st thou where at Troy Minerva’s temple stands?

POLYM. Is the gold there? But by what mark shall I the spot distinguish?

HEC. Above the surface rises a black stone.

POLYM. Will you describe the place yet more minutely?

HEC. The gold I in thy custody would place, Which I from Ilion hither bring.

POLYM. Where is it? Concealed beneath your garment?

HEC. ’Midst a heap Of spoils laid up within yon tents.

POLYM. Where mean you? These are the Grecian mariners’ abode.

HEC. In separate dwellings have they placed the captives?

POLYM. But how can we rely upon the faith Of those within? doth no man thither come?

HEC. There’s not a Greek within; we are alone: But enter thou these doors: for now the host, Impatient to weigh anchor, would return From Ilion to their homes. Thou with thy children T’ accomplish all the dread behests of fate, Shalt thither go where thou hast lodged my son.

Full Text (part 4)

[Exeunt HECUBA and POLYMESTOR.

CHOR. Thou hast not yet received the blow, But justice sure will lay thee low. Like him who headlong from on high Falls where no friendly haven’s nigh, Into the ocean’s stormy wave, Here shalt thou find a certain grave: For twofold ruin doth impend O’er him who human laws pursue, And righteous gods indignant view: Thee shall the hope of gain mislead, Which prompts thee to advance with speed, And Pluto’s loathed abode descend: Soon shalt thou press th’ ensanguined strand, Slain by a woman’s feeble hand.

POLYM. [within.] Ah me, the light that visited these eyes is darkened.

SEMICHOR. Heard ye, O my friends, the shriek Of yonder Thracian?

POLYM. [within.] Yet again, alas, My children’s foul and execrable murder!

SEMICHOR. My friends, some recent mischief hath within Been perpetrated.

POLYM. [within.] Though your feet are swift, Ye shall not ’scape, for through the walls I’ll burst My passage.

SEMICHOR. With a forceful hand, behold He brandishes the javelin. Shall we rush To seize him? This important crisis bids us Assist our queen and Phrygia’s valiant dames.

HEC. Now do thy worst, and from their hinges rend Yon massive gates; no more canst thou impart To those lost eyes their visual orbs, nor see Thy sons, whom I have slain, to life restored.

HECUBA, CHORUS.

CHOR. Hast thou, my honoured mistress, caught the Thracian, Over this treacherous friend hast thou prevailed, And all thy threats accomplished?

HEC. Ye shall see him Before the tent, without delay, deprived Of sight, advancing with unsteady foot, And the two breathless corses of his sons, Whom I, assisted by the noblest matrons Of Troy, have slain. Th’ atonement he hath paid To my revenge, is just. But now behold He issues forth: I will retire and shun The Thracian chief’s unconquerable rage.

POLYMESTOR, HECUBA, CHORUS.

POLYM. Ah, whither am I going? wretched me! Where am I? what supports me? With these hands Groping my way like some four-footed beast, How shall I turn me, to the right or left, That I those murderous Phrygian dames may seize Who have destroyed me? Impious and accurst Daughters of Ilion, in what dark recess Do they escape me? Would to heaven, O Sun, Thou to these bleeding eyeballs could’st afford A cure, that thou my blindness could’st remove. But hush, I hear those women’s cautious tread. How shall I leap upon them? with their flesh How shall I glut my rage, and for a feast To hungry tigers cast their mangled bones, In just requital of the horrid wrongs, Which I from them, ah wretched me, have suffered? But whither, by what impulse am I borne, Leaving the corses of my sons exposed To hellish Bacchanalians, as they lie Torn by the dogs, and on the mountain’s ridge Cast forth unburied! Where shall I stand still? Or whither shall I go? Like some proud bark Towed into harbour, which contracts its sails; I to that fatal chamber which contains The corses of my murdered sons rush onward With speed involuntary.

CHOR. Hapless man, How art thou visited by woes too grievous To be endured! but by dread Jove thy foe, On him whose deeds are base, it is ordained That the severest punishments await.

POLYM. Rouse, O ye Thracians, armed with ponderous spears, Arrayed in mail, for generous steeds renowned, A hardy race, whom Mars himself inspires. To you, O Grecian troops, and both the sons Of Atreus, I with clamorous voice appeal: Come hither, I implore you by the gods. Do any of you hear me? Is there none Who will assist? Why loiter ye? Those women, Those captives have destroyed me. Horrid wrongs Have I endured; ah me, the foul reproach! But whither shall I turn, or whither go? Through the aërial regions shall I wing My swift career to that sublime abode Where Sirius or Orion from his eyes Darts radiant flames? or, to perdition doomed, Shall I descend to Pluto’s sable flood?

CHOR. He merits pardon, whosoe’er assailed By ills too grievous to be borne, shakes off The loathed encumbrance of a wretched life.

AGAMEMNON, POLYMESTOR, HECUBA, CHORUS.

AGA. Hearing thy shrieks I came. For Echo, child Of craggy mountains, in no gentle note Wafted those sounds tumultuous through the host. Had we not known that by the Grecian spear The towers of vanquished Phrygia are o’erthrown, Such uproar would have caused no small alarm.

POLYM. My dearest friend, soon as I heard your voice, I instantly perceived ’twas Agamemnon. See you my sufferings?

AGA. Wretched Polymestor! Who hath destroyed thee? who bereaved of sight Thy bleeding orbs, and those thy children slew? Whoe’er the author of such deeds, his rage Was dreadful sure ’gainst thee and ’gainst thy sons.

POLYM. With the assistance of those captive dames, Me Hecuba hath murdered, more than murdered.

AGA. What mean’st thou? Are you guilty of the crime With which he charges you? and have you dared To perpetrate an action thus audacious?

POLYM. Ah me! what said you? Is she near at hand? Inform me where to find, that I may seize her, And scatter wide to all the fowls of heaven Her mangled corse.

AGA. Ha! what is thy design?

POLYM. Allow me, I conjure you by the gods, To grasp her with this frantic arm.

AGA. Desist, And casting forth all rancour from thy heart, Now plead thy cause; that, hearing both apart, I with unbiassed justice may decide, If thou these sufferings merit’st.

POLYM. I will speak. There was one Polydore, the youngest son Of those whom Hecuba to Priam bore; Him erst removing from the Phrygian realm, His sire to me consigned, that in my palace He might be nurtured, when that hoary king The fall of Troy suspected: him I slew: But hear my motives for the deed, to prove How justly and how prudently I acted. Your enemy, that boy, if he survived The ruin of his country, might, I feared, Collect the scattered citizens of Troy, And there again reside. I also feared, That when the Greeks knew one of Priam’s line Was living, with a second fleet invading The shores of Phrygia, they again might drain Of their inhabitants our Thracian fields, Involving us, their neighbours, in the vengeance They on their foes at Ilion wreak. To us Already hath such neighbourhood, O king, Proved baneful. But, apprized of her son’s fate, Hecuba drew me hither, on pretence She would inform me where in massive gold The hidden treasures of old Priam’s race Beneath Troy’s ruins were secured. Alone, She with my children brought me to this tent, That none beside might know. With bended knee, While on a couch I sat, some on my left, And others on my right, as with a friend, Full many of the Trojan damsels took Their places, holding up against the sun My robe, the woof of an Edonian loom: Some feigned t’ admire it, others viewed my spear, And stripped me of them both. From hand to hand The matrons, seeming to caress my children, Removed them far from their unhappy sire: And after their fond speeches, in an instant, (Could you believe it?) snatching up the swords, Which they beneath their garments had concealed, They stabbed my sons, whom while I strove to aid, In hostile guise their comrades held my arms And feet: if I looked up, they by the hair Confined me; if I moved my hands, my struggles Proved ineffectual, through the numerous band Of women who assailed me, and to close The scene of my calamity, accomplished A deed with more than common horror fraught, For they tore out my bleeding eyes, and fled. But, like a tiger starting up, I chased These ruthless fiends, and with a hunter’s speed Each wall examined, dashing to the ground, And breaking what I seized. These cruel wrongs, While I your interests study to maintain, O Agamemnon, and despatch your foe, Have I endured. To spare a long harangue, The whole of what ’gainst woman hath been said By those of ancient times, is saying now, Or shall be said hereafter, in few words Will I comprise; nor ocean’s waves, nor earth, Nurture so vile a race, as he who most Hath with the sex conversed, but knows too well.

CHOR. Curb that audacious virulence of speech, Nor, by thy woes embittered, thus revile All womankind; the number of our sex Is great, and some there are, whom as a mark To envy, their distinguished worth holds forth, Though some are justly numbered with the wicked.

HEC. O Agamemnon, never ought the tongue To have a greater influence o’er mankind Than actions; but whoever hath done well, Ought to speak well; and he, whose deeds are base, To use unseemly language, nor find means By specious words to colour o’er injustice. Full wise indeed are they to whom such art Is most familiar: but to stand the test Of time not wise enough; for they all perish, Not one of them e’er ’scapes. These previous thoughts To you, O mighty king, have I addressed. But now to him I turn, and will refute The fallacies he uttered. What pretence Hast thou for saying, that to free the Greeks From such a second war, and for the sake Of Agamemnon, thou didst slay my son? For first, O villain, the barbarian race With Greece, nor will, nor ever can be friends. What interest roused thy zeal? Didst thou expect To form a nuptial union? Wert thou moved By kindred ties, or any secret cause? Greece with a fleet forsooth would have returned To lay thy country waste. Who, canst thou think, Will credit such assertions? If the truth Thou wilt confess, gold and thy thirst of gain Were my son’s murderers. Why, when Troy yet flourished, Why, when the city was on every side Fenced by strong bulwarks, why, when Priam lived, And Hector wielded a victorious spear, Didst thou not, if thou hadst designed to act In Agamemnon’s favour, at the time When thou didst nurture my unhappy son, And in thy palace shelter, either slay, Or to the Greeks surrender up the youth A living prisoner? But when Ilion’s light Was utterly extinguished, when the smoke Declared the city subject to our foes, The stranger thou didst murder, at thy hearth Who sought protection. To confirm thy guilt, Now hear this farther charge: if thou to Greece Hadst been a friend indeed, thou should’st have given The gold thou say’st thou keep’st, not for thine own, But Agamemnon’s sake, among the troops Who suffer want, and from their native land Have for a tedious season been detained. But thou from those rapacious hands e’en now Canst not endure to part with it, but hoard’st it Still buried in thy coffers: as became thee, Hadst thou trained up my son, hadst thou to him Been a protector, great is the renown Thou would’st have gained; for in distress the good Are steadfast; but our prosperous fortunes swarm With friends unbidden. Hadst thou been in want, And Polydore abounded, a sure treasure To thee would he have proved: but now no longer In him hast thou a friend; thou of thy gold Hast lost th’ enjoyment, thou thy sons hast lost, And art thyself thus wretched. But to you, O Agamemnon, now again I speak: If you assist him, you will seem corrupt; For you will benefit a man devoid Of honour, justice, piety, or truth; It might be said that you delight in evil; But, I presume not to reproach my lords.

CHOR. How doth a virtuous cause inspire the tongue With virtuous language!

AGA. On a stranger’s woes Reluctant I pronounce, but am constrained; For shame attends the man who takes in hand Some great affair, and leaves it undecided. Know then, to me thou seem’st not to have slain Thy guest through an attachment to my cause, Nor yet to that of Greece, but that his gold Thou might’st retain: though in this wretched state Thou speak to serve thy interests. Among you Perhaps the murder of your guests seems light; We Greeks esteem it base. If I acquit thee How shall I ’scape reproach? Indeed I cannot: Since thou hast dared to perpetrate the crime, Endure the consequence.

POLYM. Too plain it seems, Ah me! that, vanquished by a female slave, Here shall I perish by ignoble hands.

HEC. Is not this just for the atrocious deed Which thou hast wrought?

POLYM. My children, wretched me! And these quenched orbs.

HEC. Griev’st thou, yet think’st thou not That I lament my son?

POLYM. Malignant woman, Do you rejoice in taunting my distress?

HEC. In such revenge have not I cause for joy?

POLYM. Yet not so hastily, when ocean’s wave——

HEC. Shall in a bark convey me to the shores Of Greece?

POLYM. Shall whelm you in its vast abyss Fall’n from the shrouds.

HEC. Raised thither by what impulse?

POLYM. Up the tall mast you with swift foot shall climb.

HEC. On feathered pinions borne, or how?

POLYM. With form Canine endued, and eyeballs glaring fire.

HEC. Whence didst thou learn that I such wondrous change Shall undergo?

POLYM. Bacchus, the Thracian seer, Gave this response.

HEC. To thee did he unfold Nought of the grievous sufferings thou endur’st?

POLYM. Then could you ne’er have caught me by your wiles.

HEC. But on this change of being, after death, Or while I yet am living, shall I enter?

POLYM. After your death, and men shall call your tomb——

HEC. By my new form, or what is it thou mean’st?

POLYM. The sepulchre of that vile brute, an object Conspicuous to the mariner.

HEC. I care not; My vengeance is complete.

POLYM. Cassandra too, Your daughter, must inevitably bleed.

HEC. Abomination! On thy guilty head These curses I retort.

POLYM. Her shall the wife Of Agamemnon slay, who sternly guards His royal mansion.

HEC. Such a frantic deed As this may Tyndarus’ daughter ne’er commit!

POLYM. She next uplifting the remorseless axe Shall smite her lord.

AGA. Ha! madman, dost thou court Thy ruin?

POLYM. Slay me; for the murderous bath Awaits you, when to Argos you return.

AGA. Will ye not drag him from my sight by force?

POLYM. Hear you with grief what I announce?

AGA. My followers, Why stop ye not the miscreant’s boding mouth?

POLYM. This mouth be closed for ever: I have spoken.

AGA. Will ye not cast him with the utmost speed Upon some desert island, since he dares To speak with such licentiousness? Depart, O wretched Hecuba, and both those corses Deposit in the grave. But, as for you, Ye to your lord’s pavilions must repair, O Phrygian dames: for I perceive the gales Rising to waft us homeward; may success Attend the voyage to our native land! And in our mansions may we find all well, Freed from these dangers!

CHOR. To the haven go, And to the tents, my friends, t’ endure the toils Our lords impose: for thus harsh fate enjoins.