TALTHYBIUS.

Back!  Thou art drunken with thy miseries,
Poor woman!—­Hold her fast, men, till it please
Odysseus that she come.  She was his lot
Chosen from all and portioned.  Lose her not!

[He goes to watch over the burning of the City.  The dusk deepens.

CHORUS.
Divers Women.

     Woe, woe, woe! 
Thou of the Ages[47], O wherefore fleest thou,
  Lord of the Phrygian, Father that made us? 
  ’Tis we, thy children; shall no man aid us? 
  ’Tis we, thy children!  Seest thou, seest thou?

Others.

 He seeth, only his heart is pitiless;
     And the land dies:  yea, she,
She of the Mighty Cities perisheth citiless! 
     Troy shall no more be!

Others.

Woe, woe, woe! 
  Ilion shineth afar! 
Fire in the deeps thereof,
Fire in the heights above,
  And crested walls of War!

Others. 
   As smoke on the wing of heaven
     Climbeth and scattereth,
   Torn of the spear and driven,
     The land crieth for death: 
O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven,
     And the sword’s angry breath!

[A new thought comes to HECUBA; she kneels and beats the earth with her hands.

HECUBA.

[Strophe.

O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O
  mine own,
Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness
  lying!

LEADER.

Now hast thou found thy prayer[48], crying to them that
  are gone.

HECUBA.

Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your
  head;
Hearken, O ye so silent!  My hands beat your bed!

LEADER.

    I, I am near thee;
    I kneel to thy dead to hear thee,
Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear
  my crying!

HECUBA.

Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they
  bear,

LEADER. 
(Pain; O pain!)

HECUBA.

We go to the house of bondage.  Hear, ye dead, O
  hear!

LEADER. 
(Go, and come not again!)

HECUBA.

Priam, mine own Priam,
  Lying so lowly,
Thou in thy nothingness,
Shelterless, comfortless,
See’st thou the thing I am? 
Know’st thou my bitter stress?

LEADER.

Nay, thou art naught to him! 
Out of the strife there came,
Out of the noise and shame,
Making his eyelids dim,
  Death, the Most Holy!
[The fire and smoke rise constantly higher.

HECUBA.

[Antistrophe. 
O high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth,
  Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and
     blood-red river!

LEADER.

Fall, and men shall forget you!  Ye shall lie in the
  gentle earth.

HECUBA.

The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing;
It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished
  thing!