Trojan Women of Euripides (3 of 20)

---

SHARING
We encourage sharing--forward to a friend!

---

Previous | Next

THE TROJAN WOMEN OF EURIPIDES (CONT'D)


_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 strengthened!
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 coiled 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 Eurotas 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 bruised 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!

[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 Eurotas, the river of her home,
Sparta.

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

Previous | Next