exander, Palamedes, Troaedes 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