POLTX.  He lives, and shall close thy dying eye.

Hec.  I am dead, before my death, beneath my ills.

POLYX.  Lead me, Ulysses, having covered my face with a veil, since, before I am sacrificed indeed, I am melted in heart at my mother’s plaints, her also I melt by my lamentations.  O light, for yet it is allowed me to express thy name, but I have no share in thee, except during the time that I am going between the sword and the pyre of Achilles.

Hec.  Ah me!  I faint; and my limbs fail me.—­O daughter, touch thy mother, stretch forth thy hand—­give it me—­leave me not childless—­I am lost, my friends.  Would that I might see the Spartan Helen, the sister of the twin sons of Jove, thus, for through her bright eyes that most vile woman destroyed the happy Troy.

Chor.  Gale, gale of the sea,[8] which waftest the swift barks bounding through the waves through the surge of the ocean, whither wilt thou bear me hapless?  To whose mansion shall I come, a purchased slave?  Or to the port of the Doric or Phthian shore, where they report that Apidanus, the most beautiful father of floods, enriches the plains? or wilt thou bear me hapless urged by the maritime oar, passing a life of misery in my prison-house, to that island[9] where both the first-born palm tree and the laurel shot forth their hallowed branches to their beloved Latona, emblem of the divine parturition?  And with the Delian nymphs shall I celebrate in song the golden chaplet and bow of Diana?  Or, in the Athenian city, shall I upon the saffron robe harness the steeds to the car of Minerva splendid in her chariot, representing them in embroidery upon the splendid looms of brilliant threads, or the race of Titans, which Jove the son of Saturn sends to eternal rest with his flaming lightning?  Alas, my children!  Alas, my ancestors, and my paternal land, which is overthrown, buried in smoke, captured by the Argive sword! but I indeed am[10] a slave in a foreign country, having left Asia the slave of Europe, having changed my bridal chamber for the grave.

Talthybius, Hecuba, chorus.

TAL.  Tell me, ye Trojan dames, where can I find Hecuba, late the queen of
Troy?

Chor.  Not far from thee, O Talthybius, she is lying stretched on the ground, muffled in her robes.

TAL.  O Jupiter, what shall I say?  Shall I say that thou beholdest mortals? or that they have to no end or purpose entertained false notions, who suppose the existence of a race of Deities, and that fortune has the sovereign control over men?  Was not this the queen of the opulent Phrygians? was not this the wife of the all-blest Priam?  And now all her city is overthrown by the spear, but she a captive, aged, childless, lies on the ground defiling her ill-fated head with the dust.  Alas! alas!  I too am old, but rather may death be my portion before I am involved in any such debasing fortune; stand up, oh unhappy, raise thy side, and lift up thy hoary head.