Pyrrhus, Achilles’ son, hath taken her.

HECUBA.

     And I, whose slave am I,
The shaken head, the arm that creepeth by,
     Staff-crutched, like to fall?

TALTHYBIUS.

Odysseus[17], Ithaca’s king, hath thee for thrall.

HECUBA.

Beat, beat the crownless head: 
Rend the cheek till the tears run red! 
A lying man and a pitiless
Shall be lord of me, a heart full-flown
  With scorn of righteousness: 
O heart of a beast where law is none,
Where all things change so that lust be fed,
The oath and the deed, the right and the wrong,
Even the hate of the forked tongue: 
Even the hate turns and is cold,
False as the love that was false of old!

O Women of Troy, weep for me! 
Yea, I am gone:  I am gone my ways. 
Mine is the crown of misery,
The bitterest day of all our days.

LEADER.

Thy fate thou knowest, Queen:  but I know not
What lord of South or North has won my lot.

TALTHYBIUS.

Go, seek Cassandra, men!  Make your best speed,
That I may leave her with the King, and lead
These others to their divers lords....  Ha, there! 
What means that sudden light?  Is it the flare
Of torches?

[Light is seen shining through the crevices of the second hut on the right.  He moves towards it.

Would they fire their prison rooms,
Or how, these dames of Troy?—­’Fore God, the dooms
Are known, and now they burn themselves and die[18]
Rather than sail with us!  How savagely
In days like these a free neck chafes beneath
Its burden!...  Open!  Open quick!  Such death
Were bliss to them, it may be:  but ’twill bring
Much wrath, and leave me shamed before the King!

HECUBA.

There is no fire, no peril:  ’tis my child,
Cassandra, by the breath of God made wild.

[The door opens from within and CASSANDRA enters, white-robed and wreathed like a Priestess, a great torch in her hand.  She is singing softly to herself and does not see the Herald or the scene before her.

CASSANDRA.

Lift, lift it high:  [Strophe. 
  Give it to mine hand! 
    Lo, I bear a flame
    Unto God!  I praise his name. 
  I light with a burning brand
This sanctuary. 
Blessed is he that shall wed,
  And blessed, blessed am I
  In Argos:  a bride to lie
With a king in a king’s bed.

  Hail, O Hymen[19] red,
  O Torch that makest one! 
  Weepest thou, Mother mine own? 
Surely thy cheek is pale
With tears, tears that wail
  For a land and a father dead. 
  But I go garlanded: 
I am the Bride of Desire: 
  Therefore my torch is borne—­
  Lo, the lifting of morn,
Lo, the leaping of fire!—­

For thee, O Hymen bright,
  For thee, O Moon of the Deep,
So Law hath charged, for the light
  Of a maid’s last sleep.