The Trojan women of Euripides - Euripides (best e book reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: Euripides
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Of wrong. One child beside Achilles' grave
In secret slain[5], Polyxena the brave,
Lies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone;
And, lo, Cassandra[6], she the Chosen One,
Whom Lord Apollo spared to walk her way
A swift and virgin spirit, on this day
Lust hath her, and she goeth garlanded
A bride of wrath to Agamemnon's bed.
[He turns to go; and another divine Presence becomes visible in the dusk. It is the goddess PALLAS ATHENA.
O happy long ago, farewell, farewell,
Ye shining towers and mine old citadel;
Broken by Pallas[7], Child of God, or still
Thy roots had held thee true.
Is it the will
Of God's high Brother, to whose hand is given
Great power of old, and worship of all Heaven,
To suffer speech from one whose enmities
This day are cast aside?
His will it is:
Kindred and long companionship withal,
Most high Athena, are things magical.
Blest be thy gentle mood!—Methinks I see
A road of comfort here, for thee and me.
Thou hast some counsel of the Gods, or word
Spoken of Zeus? Or is it tidings heard
From some far Spirit?
For this Ilion's sake,
Whereon we tread, I seek thee, and would make
My hand as thine.
Hath that old hate and deep
Failed, where she lieth in her ashen sleep?
Thou pitiest her?
Speak first; wilt thou be one
In heart with me and hand till all be done?
Yea; but lay bare thy heart. For this land's sake
Thou comest, not for Hellas?
I would make
Mine ancient enemies laugh for joy, and bring
On these Greek ships a bitter homecoming.
Swift is thy spirit's path, and strange withal,
And hot thy love and hate, where'er they fall.
A deadly wrong they did me, yea within
Mine holy place: thou knowest?
I know the sin
Of Ajax[8], when he cast Cassandra down….
And no man rose and smote him; not a frown
Nor word from all the Greeks!
And 'twas thine hand
That gave them Troy!
Therefore with thee I stand
To smite them.
All thou cravest, even now
Is ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?
An homecoming that striveth ever more
And cometh to no home.
Here on the shore
Wouldst hold them or amid mine own salt foam?
When the last ship hath bared her sail for home!
Zeus shall send rain, long rain and flaw of driven
Hail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven;
To me his levin-light he promiseth
O'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death:
Do thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steep
With war of waves and yawning of the deep,
Till dead men choke Euboea's curling bay.
So Greece shall dread even in an after day
My house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!
I give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands
Shall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that cross
The Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos,
Scyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-driven
Caphêreus with the bones of drownèd men
Shall glut him.—Go thy ways, and bid the Sire
Yield to thine hand the arrows of his fire.
Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind
Her cable coil for home! [Exit PALLAS.
How are ye blind,
Ye treaders down of cities, ye that cast
Temples to desolation, and lay waste
Tombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie
The ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!
[Exit POSEIDON.
* * * * *
The day slowly dawns: HECUBA wakes.
HECUBA.Up from the earth, O weary head!
This is not Troy, about, above—
Not Troy, nor we the lords thereof.
Thou breaking neck, be strengthenèd!
Endure and chafe not. The winds rave
And falter. Down the world's wide road,
Float, float where streams the breath of God;
Nor turn thy prow to breast the wave.
Ah woe!… For what woe lacketh here?
My children lost, my land, my lord.
O thou great wealth of glory, stored
Of old in Ilion, year by year
We watched … and wert thou nothingness?
What is there that I fear to say?
And yet, what help?… Ah, well-a-day,
This ache of lying, comfortless
And haunted! Ah, my side, my brow
And temples! All with changeful pain
My body rocketh, and would fain
Move to the tune of tears that flow:
For tears are music too, and keep
A song unheard in hearts that weep.
[She rises and gazes towards the Greek ships far off on the shore.
O ships, O crowding faces
Of ships[9], O hurrying beat
Of oars as of crawling feet,
How found ye our holy places?
Threading the narrows through,
Out from the gulfs of the Greek,
Out to the clear dark blue,
With hate ye came and with joy,
And the noise of your music flew,
Clarion and pipe did shriek,
As the coilèd cords ye threw,
Held in the heart of Troy!
What sought ye then that ye came?
A woman, a thing abhorred:
A King's wife that her lord
Hateth: and Castor's[10] shame
Is hot for her sake, and the reeds
Of old Eurôtas stir
With the noise of the name of her.
She slew mine ancient King,
The Sower of fifty Seeds[11],
And cast forth mine and me,
As shipwrecked men, that cling
To a reef in an empty sea.
Who am I that I sit
Here at a Greek king's door,
Yea, in the dust of it?
A slave that men drive before,
A woman that hath no home,
Weeping alone for her dead;
A low and bruisèd head,
And the glory struck therefrom.
[She starts up from her solitary brooding, and calls to the other
Trojan Women in the huts.
O Mothers of the Brazen Spear,
And maidens, maidens, brides of shame,
Troy is a smoke, a dying flame;
Together we will weep for her:
I call ye as a wide-wing'd bird
Calleth the children of her fold,
To cry, ah, not the cry men heard
In Ilion, not the songs of old,
That echoed when my hand was true
On Priam's sceptre, and my feet
Touched on the stone one signal beat,
And out the Dardan music rolled;
And Troy's great Gods gave ear thereto.
[The door of one of the huts on the right opens, and the Women steal out severally, startled and afraid.
FIRST WOMAN.[Strophe I.
How say'st thou? Whither moves thy cry,
Thy bitter cry? Behind our door
We heard thy heavy heart outpour
Its sorrow: and there shivered by
Fear and a quick sob shaken
From prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!
Child, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore….
SECOND WOMAN.The ships, the ships awaken!
THIRD WOMAN.Dear God, what would they? Overseas
Bear me afar to strange cities?
Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,
Fears of the hope-forsaken.
Awake, O daughters of affliction, wake
And learn your lots! Even now the Argives break
Their camp for sailing!
Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not her
Whom God hath maddened, lest the foe
Mock at her dreaming. Leave me clear
From that one edge of woe.
O Troy, my Troy, thou diest here
Most lonely; and most lonely we
The living wander forth from thee,
And the dead leave thee wailing!
[One of the huts on the left is now open, and the rest of the CHORUS come out severally. Their number eventually amounts to fifteen.
FOURTH WOMAN.[Antistrophe I.
Out of the tent of the Greek king
I steal, my Queen, with trembling breath:
What means thy call? Not death; not death!
They would not slay so low a thing!
O, 'tis the ship-folk crying
To deck the galleys: and we part, we part!
Nay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart.
FIFTH WOMAN.My heart with dread is dying!
SIXTH WOMAN.An herald from the Greek hath come!
FIFTH WOMAN.How have they cast me, and to whom
A bondmaid?
Peace, child: wait thy doom.
Our lots are near the trying.
Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,
Or some lone island of the tossing sea,
Far, far from Troy?
And I the agèd, where go I,
A winter-frozen bee, a slave
Death-shapen, as the stones that lie
Hewn on a dead man's grave:
The children of mine enemy
To foster, or keep watch before
The threshold of a master's door,
I that was Queen in Troy!
[Strophe 2.
And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?
THE OTHER.The shuttle still shall flit and change
Beneath my fingers, but the loom,
Sister, be strange.
ANOTHER (wildly).
Look, my dead child! My child, my love,
The last look….
Oh, there cometh worse.
A Greek's bed in the dark….
God curse
That night and all the powers thereof!
Or pitchers to and fro to bear
To some Pirênê[12] on the hill,
Where the proud water craveth still
Its broken-hearted minister.
God guide me yet to Theseus' land[13],
The gentle land, the famed afar….
But not the hungry foam—Ah, never!—
Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river,
To bow to Menelaus' hand,
That wasted Troy with war!
[Antistrophe 2.
They told us of a land high-born,
Where glimmers round Olympus' roots
A lordly river, red with corn
And burdened fruits.
Aye, that were next in my desire
To Athens, where good spirits dwell….
Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire
That front the Tyrian's Citadel:
First mother, she, of Sicily
And mighty mountains: fame hath told
Their crowns of goodness manifold….
And, close beyond the narrowing sea,
A sister land, where float enchanted
Ionian summits, wave on wave,
And Crathis of the burning tresses
Makes red the happy vale, and blesses
With gold of fountains spirit-haunted
Homes of true men and brave!
But lo, who cometh: and his lips
Grave with the weight of dooms unknown:
A Herald from the Grecian ships.
Swift comes he, hot-foot to be done
And finished. Ah, what bringeth he
Of news or judgment? Slaves are we,
Spoils that the Greek hath won!
[TALTHYBIUS[14], followed by some Soldiers, enters from the left.
TALTHYBIUS.Thou know'st me, Hecuba. Often have I crossed
Thy plain with tidings from the Hellene host.
'Tis I, Talthybius…. Nay, of ancient use
Thou know'st me. And I come to bear thee news.
Ah me, 'tis here, 'tis here,
Women of Troy, our long embosomed fear!
The lots are cast, if that it was ye feared.
HECUBA. What lord, what land…. Ah me,
Phthia or Thebes, or sea-worn Thessaly?
Each hath her own. Ye go not in one herd.
HECUBA.Say then what lot hath any? What of joy
Falls, or can fall on any child of Troy?
I know: but make thy questions severally.
HECUBA. My stricken one must be
Still first. Say how Cassandra's portion lies.
Chosen from all for Agamemnon's prize!
HECUBA. How, for his Spartan bride
A tirewoman? For Helen's sister's pride?
Nay, nay: a bride herself, for the King's bed.
HECUBA.The sainted of Apollo? And her own
Prize that God promised
Out of the golden clouds, her virgin crown?…
He loved her for that same strange holiness.
HECUBA. Daughter, away, away,
Cast all away,
The haunted Keys[15], the lonely stole's array
That kept thy body like a sacred place!
Is't not rare fortune that the King hath smiled
On such a maid?
What of that other child
Ye reft from me but now?
TALTHYBIUS (speaking with some constraint).
Polyxena? Or what child meanest thou?
HECUBA.The same. What man now hath her, or what doom?
TALTHYBIUS.She rests apart, to watch Achilles' tomb.
HECUBA.To watch a tomb? My daughter? What is this?…
Speak, Friend? What fashion of the laws of Greece?
Count thy maid happy! She hath naught of ill
To fear….
What meanest thou? She liveth still?
TALTHYBIUS.I mean, she hath one toil[16] that holds her free
From all toil else.
What of Andromache,
Wife of mine iron-hearted Hector, where
Journeyeth she?
Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, hath taken her.
HECUBA. And I, whose slave am I,
The shaken head, the arm that creepeth by,
Staff-crutchèd, like to fall?
Odysseus[17], Ithaca's king, hath thee for thrall.
HECUBA.Beat, beat the crownless head:
Rend the cheek till the tears run red!
A lying man and a pitiless
Shall be lord of me, a heart full-flown
With scorn of righteousness:
O heart of a beast where law is none,
Where all things change so that lust be fed,
The oath and the deed, the right and the wrong,
Even the hate of the forked tongue:
Even the hate turns and is cold,
False as the love that
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