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