The Trojan Women of Euripides. Euripides

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 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,

       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 1.

      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!

      Hecuba. 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?

      Hecuba. Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,

       Fears of the hope-forsaken.

      First Woman.

      Awake, O daughters of affliction, wake

       And learn your lots! Even now the Argives break

       Their camp for sailing!

      Hecuba.

      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 1.

      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!

      Fifth Woman. O, 'tis the ship-folk crying

       To deck the galleys: and we part, we part!

      Hecuba. 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?

      Hecuba. Peace, child: wait thy doom.

       Our lots are near the trying.

      Fourth Woman.

      Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,

       Or some lone island of the tossing sea,

       Far, far from Troy?

      Hecuba.

      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!

      A Woman to Another.

      [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. … Another. Oh, there cometh worse. A Greek's bed in the dark. … Another. God curse That night and all the powers thereof!Another. Or pitchers to and fro to bear To some Pirênê on the hill, Where the proud water craveth still Its broken-hearted minister. Another. God guide me yet to Theseus' land, The gentle land, the famed afar … Another. But not the hungry foam—Ah, never!— Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river, To bow to Menelaus' hand, That wasted Troy with war!

      A Woman.

      [Antistrophe 2.

      They told us of a land high-born,

       Where glimmers round Olympus' roots

       A lordly river, red with corn

       And burdened fruits.

      Another. Aye, that were next in my desire

       To Athens, where good spirits dwell …

      Another. 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. …

      Another. 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