Helen. Thou fallst a prey
To the unwilling Ithacan.
Hecuba. Alas,
What powerless, cruel, unrelenting god
Gives kings by lot to be the prey of kings?
What god unfriendly thus divides the spoil?
What cruel arbiter forbids us choose 1015
Our masters? With Achilles' arms confounds
Great Hector's mother?
To Ulysses' lot!
Conquered and captive am I now indeed,
Besieged by all misfortunes! 'Tis my lord
Puts me to shame, and not my servitude! 1020
Harsh land and sterile, by rough seas enclosed,
Thou wilt not hold my grave! Lead on, lead on,
Ulysses, I delay not, I will go—
Will follow thee; my fate will follow me.
No tranquil calm will rest upon the sea; 1025
Wind, war, and flame shall rage upon the deep,
My woes and Priam's! When these things shall come,
Respite from punishment shall come to Troy.
Mine is the lot, from thee I snatch the prize!
But see where Pyrrhus comes with hasty steps 1030
And troubled face. Why pause? On, Pyrrhus, on!
Into this troubled bosom drive the sword,
And join to thy Achilles his new kin!
Slayer of aged men, up, here is blood,
Blood worthy of thy sword; drag off thy spoil, 1035
And with thy hideous slaughter stain the gods—
The gods who sit in heaven and those in hell!
What can I pray for thee? I pray for seas
Worthy these rites; I pray the thousand ships,
The fleet of the Pelasgians, may meet 1040
Such fate as that I fain would whelm the ship
That bears me hence a captive.
Scene II
Chorus. Sweet is a nation's grief to one who grieves—
Sweet are the lamentations of a land!
The sting of tears and grief is less when shared 1045
By many; sorrow, cruel in its pain,
Is glad to see its lot by many shared,
To know that not alone it suffers loss.
None shuns the hapless fate that many bear;
None deems himself forlorn, though truly so, 1050
If none are happy near him. Take away
His riches from the wealthy, take away
The hundred cattle that enrich his soil,
The poor will lift again his lowered head;
'Tis only by comparison man's poor. 1055
O'erwhelmed in hopeless ruin, it is sweet
To see none happy. He deplores his fate
Who, shipwrecked, naked, finds the longed-for port
Alone. He bears with calmer mien his fate
Who sees, with his, a thousand vessels wrecked 1060
By the fierce tempest, sees the broken planks
Heaped on the shore, the while the northwest wind
Drives on the coast, nor he alone returns
A shipwrecked beggar. When the radiant ram,
The gold-fleeced leader of the flock, bore forth 1065
Phryxus and Helle, Phryxus mourned the fall
Of Helle dropped into the Hellespont.
Pyrrha, Deucalion's wife, restrained her tears,
As he did, when they saw the sea, naught else,
And they alone of living men remained. 1070
The Grecian fleet shall scatter far and wide
Our grief and lamentations. When shall sound
The trumpet, bidding spread the sails? When dip
The laboring oars, and Troy's shores seem to flee?
When shall the land grow faint and far, the sea 1075
Expand before, Mount Ida fade behind?
Then grows our sorrow; then what way Troy lies
Mother and son shall gaze. The son shall say,
Pointing the while, 'There where the curving line
Of smoke floats, there is Ilium.' By that sign 1080
May Trojans know their country.
ACT V
Scene I
Hecuba, Andromache, Messenger.
Messenger. O bitter, cruel, lamentable fate!
In these ten years of crime what deed so hard,
So sad, has Mars encountered? What decree
Of fate shall I lament? Thy bitter lot, 1085
Andromache? Or thine, thou aged one?
Hecuba. Whatever woe thou mournst is Hecuba's;
Their own griefs only others have to bear,
I bear the woes of all, all die through me,
And sorrow follows all who call me friend. 1090