ANDROMACHE.

Polyxena across Achilles’ tomb
Lies slain, a gift flung to the dreamless dead.

HECUBA.

My sorrow!...  ’Tis but what Talthybius said: 
So plain a riddle, and I read it not.

ANDROMACHE.

I saw her lie, and stayed this chariot;
And raiment wrapt on her dead limbs, and beat
My breast for her.

HECUBA (to herself).

O the foul sin of it! 
The wickedness!  My child.  My child!  Again
I cry to thee.  How cruelly art thou slain!

ANDROMACHE.

She hath died her death, and howso dark it be,
Her death is sweeter than my misery.

HECUBA.

Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup
Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope.

ANDROMACHE.

O Mother, having ears, hear thou this word
Fear-conquering, till thy heart as mine be stirred
With joy.  To die is only not to be;
And better to be dead than grievously
Living.  They have no pain, they ponder not
Their own wrong.  But the living that is brought
From joy to heaviness, his soul doth roam,
As in a desert, lost, from its old home. 
Thy daughter lieth now as one unborn,
Dead, and naught knowing of the lust and scorn
That slew her.  And I ... long since I drew my
  bow
Straight at the heart of good fame; and I know
My shaft hit; and for that am I the more
Fallen from peace.  All that men praise us for,
I loved for Hector’s sake, and sought to win. 
I knew that alway, be there hurt therein
Or utter innocence, to roam abroad
Hath ill report for women; so I trod
Down the desire thereof, and walked my way
In mine own garden.  And light words and gay
Parley of women never passed my door. 
The thoughts of mine own heart ...  I craved no more.... 
  Spoke with me, and I was happy.  Constantly
I brought fair silence and a tranquil eye
For Hector’s greeting, and watched well the way
Of living, where to guide and where obey. 
  And, lo! some rumour of this peace, being gone
Forth to the Greek, hath cursed me.  Achilles’ son,
So soon as I was taken, for his thrall
Chose me.  I shall do service in the hall
Of them that slew....  How?  Shall I thrust aside
Hector’s beloved face, and open wide
My heart to this new lord?  Oh, I should stand
A traitor to the dead!  And if my hand
And flesh shrink from him ... lo, wrath and despite
O’er all the house, and I a slave!

One night,
One night ... aye, men have said it ... maketh tame
A woman in a man’s arms....  O shame, shame! 
What woman’s lips can so forswear her dead,
And give strange kisses in another’s bed? 
Why, not a dumb beast, not a colt will run
In the yoke untroubled, when her mate is gone—­
A thing not in God’s image, dull, unmoved
Of reason.  O my Hector! best beloved,
That, being mine, wast all in all to me,