Andromache. How narrow is the time we seek for tears!
Grant me a trivial boon: that with these hands 810
His living eyes be bound. My little one,
Thou diest, but feared already by thy foes;
Thy Troy awaits thee; go, in freedom go,
To meet free Trojans.
Astyanax. Mother, pity me!
Andromache. Why hold thy mother's hands and clasp her neck,815
And seek in vain a refuge? The young bull,
Thus fearful, seeks his mother when he hears
The roaring of the lion; from her side
By the fierce lion driv'n, the tender prey
Is seized, and crushed, and dragged apart; so thee 820
Thy foeman snatches from thy mother's breast.
Child, take my tears, my kisses, my torn locks,
Go to thy father, bear him these few words
Of my complaint: 'If still thy spirit keeps
Its former cares, if died not on the flames 825
Thy former love, why leave Andromache
To serve the Grecians? Hector, cruel one,
Dost thou lie cold and vanquished in the grave?
Achilles came again.' Take then these locks,
These tears, for these alone I have to give, 830
Since Hector's death, and take thy mother's kiss
To give thy father; leave thy robe for me,
Since it has touched his tomb and his dear dust;
I'll search it well so any ashes lurk
Within its folds. 835
Ulysses. Weep no more, bear him hence;
Too long he stays the sailing of the fleet.
Scene IV
Chorus of Trojan Women.
What country calls the captives? Tempe dark?
Or the Thessalian hills? or Phthia's land
Famous for warriors? Trachin's stony plains,
Breeders of cattle? or the great sea's queen, 840
Iolchos? or the spacious land of Crete
Boasting its hundred towns? Gortyna small?
Or sterile Tricca? or Mothone crossed
By swift and frequent rivers? She who lies
Beneath the shadow of the Œtean woods, 845
Whose hostile bowmen came, not once alone,
Against the walls of Troy?
Or Olenos whose homes lie far apart?
Or Pleuron, hateful to the virgin god?
Or Trœzen on the ocean's curving shore? 850
Or Pelion, mounting heavenward, the realm
Of haughty Prothous? There in a vast cave
Great Chiron, teacher of the savage child,
Struck with his plectrum from the sounding strings
Wild music, stirred the boy with songs of war. 855
Perchance Carystus, for its marbles famed,
Calls us; or Chalcis, lying on the coast
Of the unquiet sea whose hastening tide
Beats up the strait; Calydna's wave-swept shore;
Or stormy Genoessa; or the isle 860
Of Peparethus near the seaward line
Of Attica; Enispe smitten oft
By Boreas; or Eleusis, reverenced
For Ceres' holy, secret mysteries?
Or shall we seek great Ajax' Salamis? 865
Or Calydon the home of savage beasts?
Or countries that the Titaressus laves
With its slow waters? Scarphe, Pylos old,
Or Bessus, Pharis, Pisa, Elis famed
For the Olympian games? 870
It matters not what tempest drives us hence,
Or to what land it bears us, so we shun
Sparta, the curse alike of Greece and Troy;
Nor seek the land of Argos, nor the home
Of cruel Pelops, Neritus hemmed in 875
By narrower limits than Zacynthus small,
Nor threatening cliffs of rocky Ithaca.
O Hecuba, what fate, what land, what lord
Remains for thee? In whose realm meetst thou death?