the maiden? Hast thou naught to
give to her so exceeding brave in heart and most noble in soul?" These
things I tell thee of the death of thy daughter, but I behold thee at once
the most happy, at once the most unhappy of all women in thine offspring.

CHOR. Dreadful calamities have risen fierce against the house of Priam;
such the hard fate of the Gods.

HEC. O daughter! which of my ills I shall first attend to, amidst such a
multitude, I know not: for if I touch on any, another does not suffer me;
and thence again some fresh grief draws me aside, succeeding miseries upon
miseries. And now I can not obliterate from my mind thy sufferings, so as
not to bewail them: but excess of grief hast thou taken away, having been
reported to me as noble. Is it then no paradox, if land indeed naturally
bad, when blest with a favorable season from heaven, bears well the ear;
but good land, robbed of the advantages it ought to have, brings forth bad
fruit: but ever among men, the bad by nature is nothing else but bad; the
good always good, nor under misfortune does he degenerate from his nature,
but is the same good man? Is it, that the parents cause this difference, or
the education? The being brought up nobly hath indeed in it the knowledge
and principles of goodness; but if one is acquainted well with this, he
knows what is vicious, having already learned it by the rule of virtue. And
this indeed has my mind been ejaculating in vain. But do thou go, and
signify these things to the Greeks, that no one be suffered to touch my
daughter, but bid them keep off the multitude. In so vast an army the
rabble are riotous, and the sailors' uncontrolled insolence is fiercer than
fire; and he is evil, who does not evil. But do thou, my old attendant,
taking an urn, fill it with sea water, and bring it hither, that I may wash
my girl in her last bath, the bride no bride now, and the virgin no longer
a virgin, wash her, and lay her out; according to her merits--whence can I?
This I can not; but as I can, I will, for what can I do! And collecting
ornaments from among the captured women, who dwell beside me in these
tents, if any one, unobserved by our new lords, has by her any stolen
memorial of her home. O state of my house, O mansions once happy! O Priam,
of vast wealth possessed, and supremely blest in thine offspring, and I
too, this aged woman, the mother of such children! How have we come to
nothing, bereft of our former grandeur! And yet st