Troy, Troy is gone!

AND.  Yea, and her treasure parted.

HEC.  Gone, gone, mine own
           Children, the noble-hearted!

AND.  Sing sorrow....

HEC.  For me, for me!

AND.  Sing for the Great City,
     That falleth, falleth to be
     A shadow, a fire departed.

ANDROMACHE.

[Strophe 2.

Come to me, O my lover!

HEC.  The dark shroudeth him over,
     My flesh, woman, not thine, not thine!

AND.  Make of thine arms my cover!

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe 2.

O thou whose wound was deepest,
Thou that my children keepest,
Priam, Priam, O age-worn King,
Gather me where thou sleepest.

ANDROMACHE (her hands upon her heart).

[Strophe 3.

O here is the deep of desire,

HEC. (How?  And is this not woe?)

AND.  For a city burned with fire;

HEC. (It beateth, blow on blow.)

AND.  God’s wrath for Paris, thy son, that he died not long ago: 

    Who sold for his evil love
    Troy and the towers thereof: 
    Therefore the dead men lie
    Naked, beneath the eye
    Of Pallas, and vultures croak
      And flap for joy: 
    So Love hath laid his yoke
      On the neck of Troy!

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe 3.

O mine own land, my home,

AND. (I weep for thee, left forlorn,)

HEC.  See’st thou what end is come?

AND. (And the house where my babes were born.)

HEC.  A desolate Mother we leave, O children, a City of scorn: 

     Even as the sound of a song[32]
     Left by the way, but long
     Remembered, a tune of tears
     Falling where no man hears,
     In the old house, as rain,
       For things loved of yore: 
     But the dead hath lost his pain
       And weeps no more.

LEADER.

How sweet are tears to them in bitter stress,
And sorrow, and all the songs of heaviness.

ANDROMACHE[33].

Mother of him of old, whose mighty spear
Smote Greeks like chaff, see’st thou what things are
  here?

HECUBA.

I see God’s hand, that buildeth a great crown
For littleness, and hath cast the mighty down.

ANDROMACHE.

I and my babe are driven among the droves
Of plundered cattle.  O, when fortune moves
So swift, the high heart like a slave beats low.

HECUBA.

’Tis fearful to be helpless.  Men but now
Have taken Cassandra, and I strove in vain.

ANDROMACHE.

Ah, woe is me; hath Ajax come again? 
But other evil yet is at thy gate.

HECUBA.

Nay, Daughter, beyond number, beyond weight
My evils are!  Doom raceth against doom.