To Odysseus’ gate
My mother goeth, say’st thou?  Is God’s word
As naught, to me in silence ministered,
That in this place she dies?[26]... (To herself) No
  more; no more! 
Why should I speak the shame of them, before
They come?...  Little he knows, that hard-beset
Spirit, what deeps of woe await him yet;
Till all these tears of ours and harrowings
Of Troy, by his, shall be as golden things. 
Ten years behind ten years athwart his way
Waiting:  and home, lost and unfriended....

Nay: 
Why should Odysseus’ labours vex my breath? 
On; hasten; guide me to the house of Death,
To lie beside my bridegroom!...

     Thou Greek King,
Who deem’st thy fortune now so high a thing,
Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see,
In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee: 
And with thee, with thee ... there, where yawneth
  plain
A rift of the hills, raging with winter rain,
Dead ... and out-cast ... and naked....  It is I
Beside my bridegroom:  and the wild beasts cry,
And ravin on God’s chosen!

[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the wreaths.

O, ye wreaths! 
Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes
About me, shapes of joyance mystical,
Begone!  I have forgot the festival,
Forgot the joy.  Begone!  I tear ye, so,
From off me!...  Out on the swift winds they go. 
With flesh still clean I give them back to thee,
Still white, O God, O light that leadest me!

[Turning upon the Herald.

Where lies the galley?  Whither shall I tread? 
See that your watch be set, your sail be spread
The wind comes quick[27]!  Three Powers—­mark me,
  thou!—­
There be in Hell, and one walks with thee now! 
  Mother, farewell, and weep not!  O my sweet
City, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great
Sire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead,
And I am with you, yea, with crowned head
I come, and shining from the fires that feed
On these that slay us now, and all their seed!

[She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers Hecuba, after waiting for an instant motionless, falls to the ground.

LEADER OF CHORUS.

The Queen, ye Watchers!  See, she falls, she falls,
Rigid without a word!  O sorry thralls,
Too late!  And will ye leave her downstricken,
A woman, and so old?  Raise her again!

[Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses their aid and speaks without rising.

HECUBA.

Let lie ... the love we seek not is no love.... 
This ruined body!  Is the fall thereof
Too deep for all that now is over me
Of anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be? 
Ye Gods....  Alas!  Why call on things so weak
For aid?  Yet there is something that doth seek,
Crying, for God, when one of us hath woe. 
O, I will think of things gone long ago