TROADES

FOOTNOTES:[48]Reading,monstra.[49]Reading, with a semicolon afterAnguis.ACT VAtreus[entering exultingly]: The peer of stars I move, high over all,885And with exalted head attain the heavens!Now are the reins of power within my hands,And I am master of my father's throne.I here renounce the gods, for I have gainedThe height of my desires. It is enough,And even I am satisfied. But why?Nay, rather, will I finish my revenge,And glut the father with his feast of death.890The day has fled, lest shame should hold me back;Act then, while yet the darkness veils the sky.Oh, that I might restrain the fleeing gods,And force them to behold the avenging feast!But 'tis enough, if but the father sees.895Though daylight aid me not, yet will I snatchThe shrouding darkness from thy miseries.Too long with care-free, cheerful countenanceThou liest at the feast. Now food enough,And wine enough. For so great ills as these,900Thyestes must his sober senses keep.[To the slaves.]Ye menial throng, spread wide the temple doors,The festal hall reveal. 'Tis sweet to noteThe father's frantic grief when first he seesHis children's gory heads; to catch his words,To watch his color change; to see him sit,All breathless with the shock, in dumb amaze,In frozen horror at the gruesome sight.905This is the sweet reward of all my toil—To see his misery, e'en as it growsUpon his soul.[The doors are thrown open, showingThyestesat the banquet table.]Now gleams with many a torchThe spacious banquet hall. See, there he liesUpon his golden couch all richly deckedWith tapestry, his wine-befuddled headUpstayed upon his hand. Oh, happy me!910The mightiest of the heavenly gods am I,And king of kings! The fondest of my hopesIs more than realized. His meal is done;Now raises he his silver cup to drink.Spare not the wine; there still remains the bloodOf thy three sons, and 'twill be well disguised915With old red wine. Now be the revel done.Now let the father drink the mingled bloodOf his own offspring; mine he would have drunk.But see, he starts to sing a festal song,With mind uncertain and with senses dim.Thyestes[sits alone at the banquet table, half overcome with wine; he tries to sing and be gay, but in spite of this, some vague premonition of evil weighs upon his spirit]: O heart, long dulled with wretchedness,920Put by at last thine anxious cares.Oh, now let grief and fear depart;Let haunting hunger flee away,The grim companion of the lotOf trembling exiles; and disgrace,A heavy load for mourning souls.925More boots it from what height thou fall'st,Than to what depth. How noble is't,When fallen from the pinnacle,With dauntless step and firm, to treadThe lowly plain; and noble too,Though by a mass of cares o'erwhelmed,To bolster up the shattered throne930With neck unbending; and with soulHeroic, undismayed by ills,To stand erect beneath the weightOf ruined fortunes.But away,Ye gloomy clouds of fate; ye marksOf former misery, depart.935Thy happy fortune greet with faceOf joy, and utterly forgetThe old Thyestes. But alas!This fault is linked with wretchedness,That never can the woeful soulAccept returned prosperity.Though kindly fortune smile again,940He who has suffered finds it hardTo give himself to joy. But whyDost thou restrain me? Why forbidTo celebrate this festal day?Why wouldst thou have me weep, O grief,For no cause rising? Why with flowers,945Dost thou forbid to wreathe my hair?It does, it does forbid! For see,Upon my head the flowers of springHave withered; and my festal locks,Though dripping with the precious nard,Stand up in sudden dread; my cheeks,That have no cause to weep, are wet950With tears; and in the midst of speechI groan aloud. No doubt 'tis true,That grief, well trained in weeping, lovesTo melt away in tears; and oftThe wretched feel a strong desireTo weep their fill. E'en so I longTo cry aloud my wretchedness,To rend these gorgeous Tyrian robes,955And shriek my misery to heaven.My mind gives intimation darkOf coming grief, its own distressForeboding. So the sailor fearsThe raging tempest's near approach,When tranquil waters heave and swell,960Without a breath of wind. Thou fool,What grief, what rising storm of fateDost thou imagine nigh? Nay, nay,Believe thy brother; for thy fear—'Tis groundless, whatsoe'er it be,Or thou dost fear too late. Ah me,I would not be unhappy now;965But in my soul dim terror stalks,Nor can my eyes withhold their tears;And all for naught. What can it be?Am I possessed by grief or fear?Or can this some great rapture be,That weeps for joy?Atreus[greeting his brother with effusive affection]: With one consent, my brother, let us keep970This festal day. For this the happy dayWhich shall the scepter 'stablish in thy hand,And link our family in the bonds of peace.Thyestes[pushing the remains of the feast from him]: Enough of food and wine! One thing aloneCan swell my generous sum of happiness—If with my children I may share my joy.975Atreus:Believe that in the father's bosom restThe sons; both now and ever shall they beWith thee. No single part of these thy sonsShall e'er be taken from thee. Make request:What thou desirest will I freely give,And fill thee with thy loving family.Thou shalt be satisfied; be not afraid.980E'en now thy children, mingled with my own,Enjoy alone their youthful festival.They shall be summoned hither. Now beholdThis ancient cup, an heirloom of our house.Take thou and drink the wine which it contains.[He handsThyestesthe cup filled with mingled blood and wine.]Thyestes:I take my brother's proffered gift. But firstUnto our father's gods we'll pour a share,And then will drink the cup.985But what is this?My hands will not obey my will; the cup—How heavy it has grown, how it resistsMy grasp! And see how now the wine itself,Though lifted to my mouth, avoids the touch,And flees my disappointed lips. Behold,The table totters on the trembling floor;The lights burn dim; the very air is thick,990And, by the natural fires deserted, standsAll dull and lifeless 'twixt the day and night.What can it all portend? Now more and moreThe shattered heavens seem tottering to their fall;The darkness deepens, and the gloomy nightIn blacker night is plunged. And all the starsHave disappeared. Whatever this may mean,995Oh, spare my children, brother, spare, I pray;And let this gathering storm of evil burstUpon my head. Oh, give me back my sons!Atreus:Yes, I will give them back, and never moreShall they be taken from thy fond embrace.[Exit.]Thyestes:What is this tumult rising in my breast?Why do my vitals quake? I feel a load1000Unbearable, and from my inmost heartCome groans of agony that are not mine.My children, come! your wretched father calls.Oh come! For when mine eyes behold you here,Perchance this care will pass away.—But whenceThose answering calls?Atreus[returning, with a covered platter in his hands]:Now spread thy loving arms.See, here they are.[He uncovers the platter revealing the severed heads ofThyestes'sons.]Dost recognize thy sons?1005Thyestes:I recognize my brother! How, O Earth,Canst thou endure such monstrous crime as this?Why dost thou not to everlasting shadeAnd Styx infernal cleave a yawning gulf,And sweep away to empty nothingnessThis guilty king with all his realm? And whyDost thou not raze, and utterly destroy1010The city of Mycenae? Both of usShould stand with Tantalus in punishment.If, far below the depths of Tartarus,There is a deeper hell, O Mother Earth,Thy strong foundations rend asunder wide,And send us thither to that lowest pit.1015There let us hide beneath all Acheron;Let damnéd shades above our guilty headsGo wandering; let fiery PhlegethonIn raging torrent pour his burning sandsAbove our place of exile.But the earthInsensate lies, and utterly unmoved.1020The gods have fled.Atreus:Nay, come with thankful heartReceive thy sons whom thou hast long desired.Enjoy them, kiss them, share among the threeThy fond embraces.Thyestes:And is this thy bond?Is this thy grace, thy fond fraternal faith?So dost thou cease to hate? I do not ask1025That I may have my sons again unharmed;But what in crime and hatred may be given,This I, a brother, from a brother ask:That I may bury them. Restore my sons,And thou shalt see their corpses burned at once.The father begs for naught that he may keep,But utterly destroy.1030Atreus:Thou hast thy sons,Whate'er of them remains; thou also hastWhate'er does not remain.Thyestes:What hast thou done?Hast fed them to the savage, greedy birds?Have beasts of prey devoured their tender flesh?Atreus:Thou hast thyself that impious banquet made.Thyestes:Oh, then, 'twas this that shamed the gods of heaven,1035And drove the day in horror back to dawn!Ah me, what cries shall voice, what plaints expressMy wretchedness? Where can I find the wordsThat can describe my woe? The severed headsAnd hands and mangled feet are there; for theseTheir sire, for all his greed, could not devour.1040But Oh, I feel within my vitals nowThat horrid thing which struggles to be free,But can no exit find. Give me the sword,Which even now is reeking with my blood,That it may set my children free from me.Thou wilt not give it me? Then let my breast1045Resound with crushing blows—but hold thy hand,Unhappy one, and spare the imprisoned shades.Oh, who has ever seen such crime as this?What dweller on the rough and hostile cragsOf Caucasus, or what Procrustes dire,The terror of the land of Attica?Lo I, the father, overwhelm my sons,1050And by those very sons am overwhelmed.Is there no limit to this crime of thine?Atreus:When one for its own sake commits a crime,There is a proper limit; but no endIs possible when vengeance through the crimeIs sought. E'en as it is, this deed of mineIs all too mild. I should have poured their bloodStraight from their gaping wounds into thy mouth,1055That thou mightst drink their very streams of life.But there my wrath was cheated of its dueBy overhaste.I smote them with the sword,I slaughtered them before the sacred shrine,And with their blood appeased our household gods;I hewed their lifeless bodies limb from limb;I carved them into bits, and part I seethed1060In brazen kettles, part before the fireOn spits I roasted. From their living limbsI carved the tender flesh, and saw it hissAnd sputter on the slender spit, the whileWith my own hands I kept the fire a-blaze.1065But all these things the father should have done.In this my vengeful grief has fallen short.With impious teeth he tore his slaughtered sons;But still in merciful unconsciousnessThe deed was done and suffered.Thyestes:O ye seas,Hemmed round by curving shores, give ear to this!Hear too, ye gods, wherever ye have fled.1070Ye lords of hades, hear; hear, O ye lands;And Night, all black and heavy with the pallOf Tartarus, attend unto my cry;For I am left to thee, and thou aloneDoth look in pity on my wretchedness,Thou, too, forsaken of the friendly stars;For I will raise no wicked prayers to thee,Naught for myself implore—what could I ask?1075For you, ye heavenly gods, be all my prayers.O thou, almighty ruler of the sky,Who sitt'st as lord upon the throne of heaven,Enwrap the universe in dismal clouds,Incite the winds to war on every side,And let thy thunders crash from pole to pole;1080Not with such lesser bolts as thou dost useAgainst the guiltless homes of common men,But those which overthrew the triple massOf heaped-up mountains, and those giant forms,Themselves like mountains huge: such arms employ;Hurl down such fires. Avenge the banished day;1085With thy consuming flames supply the lightWhich has been snatched from out the darkened heaven.Select us both as objects of thy wrath;Or if not both, then me; aim thou at me.With that three-forkéd bolt of thine transfix1090My guilty breast. If I would give my sonsTo burning and to fitting burial,I must myself be burned. But if my prayersDo not with heaven prevail, and if no godAims at the impious his fatal shaft;Then may eternal night brood o'er the earth,And hide these boundless crimes in endless shade.If thou, O sun, dost to thy purpose hold,1095And cease to shine, I supplicate no more.Atreus:Now do I praise my handiwork indeed;Now have I gained the palm of victory.My deed had failed entirely of its aim,Didst thou not suffer thus. Now may I trustThat those I call my sons are truly so,And faith that once my marriage bed was pureHas come again.Thyestes:What was my children's sin?1100Atreus:Because they were thychildren.Thyestes:But to thinkThat children to the father—Atreus:That indeed,I do confess it, gives me greatest joy:That thou art well assured they were thy sons.Thyestes:I call upon the gods of innocence—Atreus:Why not upon the gods of marriage call?Thyestes:Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?Atreus:Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed1105This horrid feast, but that thou wast not firstTo set it forth. This was thy fell intent,To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,And with their mother's aid attack my sons,And with a like destruction lay them low.But this one thing opposed—thou thought'st them thine.Thyestes:The gods will grant me vengeance. Unto them1110Do I intrust thy fitting penalty.Atreus:And to thy sons do I deliver thee.TROADESTROADESDRAMATIS PERSONAEAgamemnonKing of the Greek forces in the war against Troy.PyrrhusSon of Achilles, one of the active leaders in the final events of the war.UlyssesKing of Ithaca, one of the most powerful and crafty of the Greek chiefs before Troy.CalchasA priest and prophet among the Greeks.TalthybiusA Greek messenger.An Old ManFaithful to Andromache.AstyanaxLittle son of Hector and Andromache.HecubaWidow of Priam, one of the Trojan captives.AndromacheWidow of Hector, a Trojan captive.HelenaWife of Menelaüs, king of Sparta, and afterward of Paris, a prince of Troy; the exciting cause of the Trojan war.PolyxenaDaughter of Hecuba and Priam (persona muta).ChorusOf captive Trojan women.The sceneis laid on the seashore, with the smouldering ruins of Troy in the background. The time is the day before the embarkation of the Greeks on their homeward journey.The long and toilsome siege of Troy is done. Her stately palaces and massive walls have been overthrown and lie darkening the sky with their still smouldering ruins. Her heroic defenders are either slain or scattered seeking other homes in distant lands. The victorious Greeks have gathered the rich spoils of Troy upon the shore, among these, the Trojan women who have suffered the usual fate of women when a city is sacked. They await the lot which shall assign them to their Grecian lords and scatter them among the cities of their foes. All things are ready for the start.But now the ghost of Achilles has risen from the tomb, and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him before the Greeks shall be allowed to sail away. And Calchas, also, bids that Astyanax be slain, for only thus can Greece be safe from any future Trojan war. And thus the Trojan captives who have so long endured the pains of war, must suffer still this double tragedy.ACT IHecuba:Whoe'er in royal power has put his trust,And proudly lords it in his princely halls;Who fears no shifting of the winds of fate,But fondly gives his soul to present joys:Let him my lot and thine, O Troy, behold.For of a truth did fortune never showIn plainer wise the frailty of the prop5That doth support a king; since by her handBrought low, behold, proud Asia's capitol,The work of heavenly hands, lies desolate.From many lands the warring princes cameTo aid her cause: from where the TanaïsHis frigid waves in seven-fold channel pours;And that far land which greets the newborn day,10Where Tigris mingles with the ruddy seaHis tepid waves; and where the Amazon,Within the view of wandering ScythiaArrays her virgin ranks by Pontus' shores.Yet here, o'erthrown, our ancient city lies,Herself upon herself in ruins laid;Her once proud walls in smouldering heaps recline,15Mingling their ashes with our fallen homes.The palace flames on high, while far and nearThe stately city of AssaracusIs wrapped in gloomy smoke. Yet e'en the flamesKeep not the victor's greedy hands from spoil;And Troy, though in the grasp of fiery death,Is pillaged still. The face of heaven is hidBy that dense, wreathing smoke; the shining day,As if o'erspread by some thick, lowering cloud,20Grows black and foul beneath the ashy storm.The victor stands with still unsated wrath,Eyeing that stubborn town of Ilium,And scarce at last forgives those ten long yearsOf bloody strife. Anon, as he beholdsThat mighty city, though in ruins laid,He starts with fear; and though he plainly seesHis foe o'ercome, he scarce can comprehend25That she could be o'ercome. The Dardan spoilIs heaped on high, a booty vast, which Greece,In all her thousand ships, can scarce bestow.Now witness, ye divinities whose faceWas set against our state, my fatherlandIn ashes laid; and thou, proud king of Troy,Who in thy city's overthrow hast foundA fitting tomb; thou shade of mighty Hector,In whose proud strength abiding, Ilium stood;30Likewise ye thronging ghosts, my children all,But lesser shades: whatever ill has come;Whatever Phoebus' bride with frenzied speech,Though all discredited, hath prophesied;35I, Hecuba, myself foresaw, what time,With unborn child o'erweighed, I dreamed a dreamThat I had borne a flaming brand. And though,Cassandra-like, I told my fears, my warnings,Like our Cassandra's words in after time,Were all in vain. 'Tis not the Ithacan,Nor yet his trusty comrade of the night,Nor that false traitor, Sinon, who has castThe flaming brands that wrought our overthrow:Mine is the fire—'tis by my brands ye burn.40But why dost thou bewail the city's fall,With ancient gossip's prattle? Turn thy mind,Unhappy one, to nearer woes than these.Troy's fall, though sad, is ancient story now.I saw the horrid slaughter of the king,Defiling the holy altar with its stain,45When bold Aeacides, with savage handEntwined in helpless Priam's hoary locks,Drew back his sacred head, and thrust the swordHilt-buried in his unresisting side.And when he plucked the deep-driven weapon back,So weak and bloodless was our agéd king,The deadly blade came almost stainless forth.50Whose thirst for blood had not been satisfiedBy that old man just slipping o'er the vergeOf life? Whom would not heavenly witnessesRestrain from crime? Who would not stay his handBefore the sacred altar, last resortOf fallen thrones? Yet he, our noble Priam,The king, and father of so many kings,Lies like the merest peasant unentombed;55And, though all Troy's aflame, there's not a brandTo light his pyre and give him sepulture.And still the heavenly powers are not appeased.Behold the urn; and, subject to its lot,The maids and matrons of our princely line,Who wait their future lords. To whom shall I,An agéd and unprized allotment, fall?One Grecian lord has fixed his longing eyesOn Hector's queen; another prays the lotTo grant to him the bride of Helenus;60Antenor's spouse is object of desire,And e'en thy hand, Cassandra, hath its suitor:My lot alone they deprecate and fear.And can ye cease your plaints? O captive throng,Come beat upon your breasts, and let the soundOf your loud lamentations rise anew,The while we celebrate in fitting wiseTroy's funeral; let fatal Ida, seat65Of that ill-omened judgment, straight resoundWith echoes of our pitiful refrain.Chorus:Not an untrained band, to tears unknown,Thou callest to grief, for our tears have rainedIn streams unending through the years,Since the time when the Phrygian guest arrivedAt the friendly court of Tyndarus,70Sailing the sea in his vessel framedFrom the sacred pines of Cybele.Ten winters have whitened Ida's slopes,So often stripped for our funeral pyres;Ten years have ripened the waving grainWhich the trembling reaper has garnered inFrom wide Sigean harvest-fields:75But never a day was without its grief,Never a night but renewed our woe.Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide,80Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.Hecuba:Then, trusty comrades of our fate,Unbind your tresses and let them flowOver your shoulders bent with grief,The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust85Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,Strip from your breasts their covering;Why veil your beauty? Shame itself90Is held in captive bonds. And nowLet your hands wave free to the quickening blowsThat resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready,And thus it is well. I behold once moreMy old-time Trojan band. Now stoopAnd fill your hands; 'tis right to takeHer dust at least from fallen Troy.Now let the long-pent grief leap forth,95And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe.Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.Chorus:Our hair, in many a funeral torn,100We loose; and o'er our streaming locksTroy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn.From our shoulders the veiling garments fall,105And our breasts invite the smiting hands.Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength.Let the distant shores resound with our mournings;And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountainsRepeat all our wailings, not, after her wont,110With curt iteration returning the end.Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the skyRecord all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands,With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise.With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting—115Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.Hecuba:Our hero, for thee the blows are descending,On arms and shoulders that stream with our blood;For thee our brows endure rough strokes,And our breasts are mangled with pitiless hands.120Now flow the old wounds, reopened anew,That bled at thy death, the chief cause of our sorrow.O prop of our country, delayer of fate,Our Ilium's bulwark, our mighty defender,125Our strong tower wast thou; secure on thy shoulders,Our city stood leaning through ten weary years.By thy power supported, with thee has she fallen,Our country and Hector united in doom.Now turn to another the tide of your mourning;130Let Priam receive his due meed of your tears.Chorus:Receive our lamentings, O Phrygia's ruler;We weep for thy death, who wast twice overcome.Naught once did Troy suffer while thou didst rule o'er her:Twice fell her proud walls from the blows of the Grecians,135And twice was she pierced by great Hercules' darts.Now all of our Hecuba's offspring have perished,And the proud band of kings who came to our aid;Thy death is the last—our father, our ruler—Struck down as a victim to Jove the Almighty,140All helpless and lone, a mute corpse on the ground.Hecuba:Nay, give to another your tears and your mourning,And weep not the death of Priam our king.But call ye him blessed the rather; for free,To the deep world of shadows he travels, and never145Upon his bowed neck the base yoke shall he bear.No proud sons of Atreus shall call him their captive,No crafty Ulysses his eyes shall behold;As boast of their triumphs he shall not bear onward150In humble submission their prizes of war.Those free, royal hands to the scepter accustomed,Shall never be bound at his back like a slave,As he follows the car of the triumphing chieftain,A king led in fetters, the gaze of the town.155Chorus:Hail! Priam the blessed we all do proclaim him;For himself and his kingdom he rules yet below;Now through the still depths of Elysium's shadows'Midst calm, happy spirits he seeks the great Hector.160Then hail, happy Priam! Hail all who in battleHave lost life and country, but liberty gained.ACT IITalthybius:Alas, 'tis thus the Greeks are ever doomedTo lie impatient of the winds' delay,Whether on war or homeward journey bent.165Chorus:Tell thou the cause of this the Greeks' delay.What god obstructs the homeward-leading paths?Talthybius:My soul doth quake, and all my limbs with fearDo tremble. Scarce is credence given to talesThat do transcend the truth. And yet I swear,With my own eyes I saw what I relate.Now with his level rays the morning sun170Just grazed the summits of the hills, and dayHad vanquished night; when suddenly the earth,'Mid rumblings hidden deep and terrible,To her profoundest depths convulsive rocked.The tree-tops trembled, and the lofty grovesGave forth a thunderous sound of crashing boughs;While down from Ida's rent and rugged slopes175The loosened bowlders rolled. And not aloneThe earth did quake: behold, the swelling seaPerceived its own Achilles drawing near,And spread its waves abroad. Then did the groundAsunder yawn, revealing mighty caves,And gave a path from Erebus to earth.And then the high-heaped sepulcher was rent,180From which there sprang Achilles' mighty shade,In guise as when, in practice for thy fates,O Troy, he prostrate laid the Thracian arms,Or slew the son of Neptune, doomed to wearThe swan's white plumes; or when, amidst the ranksIn furious battle raging, he the streams185Did choke with corpses of the slain, and XanthusCrept sluggishly along with bloody waves;Or when he stood as victor in his car,Plying the reins and dragging in the dustGreat Hector's body and the Trojan state.So there he stood and filled the spreading shore190With wrathful words: "Go, get you gone, ye raceOf weaklings, bear away the honors dueMy manes; loose your thankless ships, and sailAcross my seas. By no slight offeringDid ye aforetime stay Achilles' wrath;And now a greater shall ye pay. Behold,Polyxena, once pledged to me in life,195Must by the hand of Pyrrhus to my shadeBe led, and with her blood my tomb bedew."So spake Achilles and the realms of dayHe left for night profound, reseeking Dis;And as he plunged within the depths of earth,The yawning chasm closed and left no trace.The sea lies tranquil, motionless; the windIts boisterous threats abates, and where but now200The storm-tossed waters raged in angry mood,The gentle waves lap harmless on the shore;While from afar the band of Tritons soundsThe marriage chorus of their kindred lord.[Exit.][EnterPyrrhusandAgamemnon.]Pyrrhus:Now that you homeward fare, and on the seaYour joyful sails would spread, my noble sireIs quite forgot, though by his single handWas mighty Troy o'erthrown; for, though his death205Some respite granted to the stricken town,She stood but as some sorely smitten tree,That sways uncertain, choosing where to fall.Though even now ye seek to make amendsFor your neglect, and haste to grant the thingHe asks, 'tis but a tardy recompense.Long since, the other chieftains of the GreeksHave gained their just reward. What lesser prizeShould his great valor claim? Or is it naught210That, though his mother bade him shun the war,And spend his life in long, inglorious ease,Surpassing even Pylian Nestor's years,He cast his mother's shamming garments off,Confessing him the hero that he was?When Telephus, in pride of royal power,215Forbade our progress through his kingdom's bounds,He stained with royal blood the untried handThat young Achilles raised. Yet once againHe felt that selfsame hand in mercy laidUpon his wound to heal him of its smart.Then did Eëtion, smitten sore, beholdHis city taken and his realm o'erthrown;By equal fortune fell Lyrnessus' walls,220For safety perched upon a ridgy height,Whence came that captive maid, Briseïs fair;And Chrysa, too, lies low, the destined causeOf royal strife; and Tenedos, and the landWhich on its spreading pastures feeds the flocks225Of Thracian shepherds, Scyros; Lesbos too,Upon whose rocky shore the sea in twainIs cleft; and Cilla, which Apollo loved.All these my father took, and eke the townsWhose walls Caÿcus with his vernal floodDoth wash against. This widespread overthrowOf tribes, this fearful and destructive scourge,That swept through many towns with whirlwind power—230This had been glory and the height of fameFor other chiefs; 'twas but an incidentIn great Achilles' journey to the war.So came my father and such wars he wagedWhile but preparing war. And though I passIn silence all his other merits, stillWould mighty Hector's death be praise enough.235My father conquered Troy; the lesser taskOf pillage and destruction is your own.'Tis pleasant thus to laud my noble sireAnd all his glorious deeds pass in review:Before his father's eyes did Hector lie,Of life despoiled; and Memnon, swarthy sonOf bright Aurora, goddess of the dawn,For whose untimely death his mother's faceWas sicklied o'er with grief, while day was veiled240In darkness. When the heaven-born Memnon fell,Achilles trembled at his victory;For in that fall he learned the bitter truthThat even sons of goddesses may die.Then, 'mongst our latest foes, the Amazons,Fierce maidens, felt my father's deadly power.So, if thou rightly estimate his deeds,Thou ow'st Achilles all that he can ask,E'en though he seek from Argos or Mycenae245Some high-born maid. And dost thou hesitateAnd haggle now, inventing scruples new,And deem it barbarous to sacrificeThis captive maid of Troy to Peleus' son?But yet for Helen's sake didst thou devoteThy daughter to the sacrificial knife.I make in this no new or strange request,But only urge a customary rite.Agamemnon:'Tis the common fault of youth to have no check250On passion's force; while others feel aloneThe sweeping rush of this first fire of youth,His father's spirit urges Pyrrhus on.I once endured unmoved the blustering threatsOf proud Achilles, swoll'n with power; and now,My patience is sufficient still to bearHis son's abuse. Why do you seek to smirch255With cruel murder the illustrious shadeOf that famed chief? 'Tis fitting first to learnWithin what bounds the victor may command,The vanquished suffer. Never has for longUnbridled power been able to endure,But lasting sway the self-controlled enjoy.The higher fortune raises human hopes,260The more should fortune's favorite controlHis vaulting pride, and tremble as he viewsThe changing fates of life, and fear the godsWho have uplifted him above his mates.By my own course of conquest have I learnedThat mighty kings can straightway come to naught.Should Troy o'erthrown exalt us overmuch?Behold, we stand today whence she has fallen.265I own that in the past too haughtilyHave I my sway o'er fallen chieftains borne;But thought of fortune's gift has checked my pride,Since she unto another might have givenThese selfsame gifts. O fallen king of Troy,Thou mak'st me proud of conquest over thee,Thou mak'st me fear that I may share thy fate.270Why should I count the scepter anythingBut empty honor and a tinsel show?This scepter one short hour can take away,Without the aid, perchance, of countless shipsAnd ten long years of war. The steps of fateDo not for all advance with pace so slow.275For me, I will confess ('tis with thy grace,O land of Greece, I speak) I have desiredTo see the pride and power of Troy brought low;But that her walls and homes should be o'erthrownIn utter ruin have I never wished.But a wrathful foe, by greedy passion driven,And heated by the glow of victory,Within the shrouding darkness of the night,280Cannot be held in check. If any actUpon that fatal night unworthy seemedOr cruel, 'twas the deed of heedless wrath,And darkness which is ever fury's spur,And the victorious sword, whose lust for blood,When once in blood imbued, is limitless.Since Troy has lost her all, seek not to grasp285The last poor fragments that remain. Enough,And more has she endured of punishment.But that a maid of royal birth should fallAn offering upon Achilles' tomb,Bedewing his harsh ashes with her blood,While that foul murder gains the honored nameOf wedlock, I shall not permit. On meThe blame of all will come; for he who sin290Forbids not when he can, commits the sin.Pyrrhus:Shall no reward Achilles' shade obtain?Agamemnon:Yea, truly; all the Greeks shall sing his praise,And unknown lands shall hear his mighty name.But if his shade demand a sacrifice295Of out-poured blood, go take our richest flocks,And shed their blood upon thy father's tomb;But let no mother's tears pollute the rite.What barbarous custom this, that living manShould to the dead be slain in sacrifice?Then spare thy father's name the hate and scornWhich by such cruel worship it must gain.300Pyrrhus:Thou, swoll'n with pride so long as happy fateUplifts thy soul, but weak and spent with fearWhen fortune frowns; O hateful king of kings,Is now thy heart once more with sudden loveOf this new maid inflamed? Shalt thou aloneSo often bear away my father's spoils?305By this right hand he shall receive his own.And if thou dost refuse, and keep the maid,A greater victim will I slay, and oneMore worthy Pyrrhus' gift; for all too longFrom royal slaughter hath my hand been free,And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.310Agamemnon:Far be it from my wish to dim the praiseThat thou dost claim for this most glorious deed—Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,Thy father's suppliant.Pyrrhus:I know full wellMy father's suppliants—and well I knowHis enemies. Yet royal Priam came,And made his plea before my father's face;315But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enoughThyself to make request, within thy tentDidst trembling hide, and thy desires consignTo braver men, that they might plead for thee.Agamemnon:But, of a truth, no fear thy father felt;But while our Greece lay bleeding, and her shipsWith hostile fire were threatened, there he laySupine and thoughtless of his warlike arms,320And idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.Pyrrhus:Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms,Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre,That our Thessalian ships were left in peace.Agamemnon:An equal peace did Hector's father findWhen he betook him to Achilles' ships.325Pyrrhus:'Tis regal thus to spare a kingly life.Agamemnon:Why then didst thou a kingly life despoil?Pyrrhus:But mercy oft doth offer death for life.Agamemnon:Doth mercy now demand a maiden's blood?330Pyrrhus:Canstthouproclaim such sacrifice a sin?Agamemnon:A king must love his country more than child.Pyrrhus:No law the wretched captive's life doth spare.Agamemnon:What law forbids not, this let shame forbid.Pyrrhus:'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he will.335Agamemnon:Then should he will the least who most can do.Pyrrhus:Dost thou boast thus, from whose tyrannic reignOf ten long years but now the Greeks I freed?Agamemnon:Such airs from Scyros!Pyrrhus:Thence no brother's blood.Agamemnon:Hemmed by the sea!Pyrrhus:Yet that same sea is ours.340But as for Pelops' house, I know it well.Agamemnon:Thou base-born son of maiden's secret sin,And young Achilles, scarce of man's estate—Pyrrhus:Yea, that Achilles who, by right of birth,Claims equal sovereignty of triple realms:345His mother rules the sea, to AeacusThe shades submit, to mighty Jove the heavens.Agamemnon:Yet that Achilles lies by Paris slain!Pyrrhus:But by Apollo's aid, who aimed the dart;For no god dared to meet him face to face.Agamemnon:I could have checked thy words, and curbed thy tongue,Too bold in evil speech; but this my sword350Knows how to spare. But rather let them callThe prophet Calchas, who the will of heavenCan tell. If fate demands the maid, I yield.[EnterCalchas.]Thou who from bonds didst loose the Grecian ships,And bring to end the slow delays of war;Who by thy mystic art canst open heaven,And read with vision clear the awful truthsWhich sacrificial viscera proclaim;To whom the thunder's roll, the long, bright trail355Of stars that flash across the sky, revealThe hidden things of fate; whose every wordIs uttered at a heavy cost to me:What is the will of heaven, O Calchas; speak,And rule us with the mastery of fate.Calchas:The Greeks must pay th' accustomed price to death,360Ere on the homeward seas they take their way.The maiden must be slaughtered on the tombOf great Achilles. Thus the rite perform:As Grecian maidens are in marriage ledBy other hands unto the bridegroom's home,So Pyrrhus to his father's shade must leadHis promised bride.365But not this cause aloneDelays our ships: a nobler blood than thine,Polyxena, is due unto the fates;For from yon lofty tower must Hector's son,Astyanax, be hurled to certain death.Then shall our vessels hasten to the sea,And fill the waters with their thousand sails.370[Exeunt.]

FOOTNOTES:[48]Reading,monstra.[49]Reading, with a semicolon afterAnguis.

[48]Reading,monstra.

[49]Reading, with a semicolon afterAnguis.

Atreus[entering exultingly]: The peer of stars I move, high over all,885And with exalted head attain the heavens!Now are the reins of power within my hands,And I am master of my father's throne.I here renounce the gods, for I have gainedThe height of my desires. It is enough,And even I am satisfied. But why?Nay, rather, will I finish my revenge,And glut the father with his feast of death.890The day has fled, lest shame should hold me back;Act then, while yet the darkness veils the sky.Oh, that I might restrain the fleeing gods,And force them to behold the avenging feast!But 'tis enough, if but the father sees.895Though daylight aid me not, yet will I snatchThe shrouding darkness from thy miseries.Too long with care-free, cheerful countenanceThou liest at the feast. Now food enough,And wine enough. For so great ills as these,900Thyestes must his sober senses keep.[To the slaves.]Ye menial throng, spread wide the temple doors,The festal hall reveal. 'Tis sweet to noteThe father's frantic grief when first he seesHis children's gory heads; to catch his words,To watch his color change; to see him sit,All breathless with the shock, in dumb amaze,In frozen horror at the gruesome sight.905This is the sweet reward of all my toil—To see his misery, e'en as it growsUpon his soul.[The doors are thrown open, showingThyestesat the banquet table.]Now gleams with many a torchThe spacious banquet hall. See, there he liesUpon his golden couch all richly deckedWith tapestry, his wine-befuddled headUpstayed upon his hand. Oh, happy me!910The mightiest of the heavenly gods am I,And king of kings! The fondest of my hopesIs more than realized. His meal is done;Now raises he his silver cup to drink.Spare not the wine; there still remains the bloodOf thy three sons, and 'twill be well disguised915With old red wine. Now be the revel done.Now let the father drink the mingled bloodOf his own offspring; mine he would have drunk.But see, he starts to sing a festal song,With mind uncertain and with senses dim.Thyestes[sits alone at the banquet table, half overcome with wine; he tries to sing and be gay, but in spite of this, some vague premonition of evil weighs upon his spirit]: O heart, long dulled with wretchedness,920Put by at last thine anxious cares.Oh, now let grief and fear depart;Let haunting hunger flee away,The grim companion of the lotOf trembling exiles; and disgrace,A heavy load for mourning souls.925More boots it from what height thou fall'st,Than to what depth. How noble is't,When fallen from the pinnacle,With dauntless step and firm, to treadThe lowly plain; and noble too,Though by a mass of cares o'erwhelmed,To bolster up the shattered throne930With neck unbending; and with soulHeroic, undismayed by ills,To stand erect beneath the weightOf ruined fortunes.But away,Ye gloomy clouds of fate; ye marksOf former misery, depart.935Thy happy fortune greet with faceOf joy, and utterly forgetThe old Thyestes. But alas!This fault is linked with wretchedness,That never can the woeful soulAccept returned prosperity.Though kindly fortune smile again,940He who has suffered finds it hardTo give himself to joy. But whyDost thou restrain me? Why forbidTo celebrate this festal day?Why wouldst thou have me weep, O grief,For no cause rising? Why with flowers,945Dost thou forbid to wreathe my hair?It does, it does forbid! For see,Upon my head the flowers of springHave withered; and my festal locks,Though dripping with the precious nard,Stand up in sudden dread; my cheeks,That have no cause to weep, are wet950With tears; and in the midst of speechI groan aloud. No doubt 'tis true,That grief, well trained in weeping, lovesTo melt away in tears; and oftThe wretched feel a strong desireTo weep their fill. E'en so I longTo cry aloud my wretchedness,To rend these gorgeous Tyrian robes,955And shriek my misery to heaven.My mind gives intimation darkOf coming grief, its own distressForeboding. So the sailor fearsThe raging tempest's near approach,When tranquil waters heave and swell,960Without a breath of wind. Thou fool,What grief, what rising storm of fateDost thou imagine nigh? Nay, nay,Believe thy brother; for thy fear—'Tis groundless, whatsoe'er it be,Or thou dost fear too late. Ah me,I would not be unhappy now;965But in my soul dim terror stalks,Nor can my eyes withhold their tears;And all for naught. What can it be?Am I possessed by grief or fear?Or can this some great rapture be,That weeps for joy?Atreus[greeting his brother with effusive affection]: With one consent, my brother, let us keep970This festal day. For this the happy dayWhich shall the scepter 'stablish in thy hand,And link our family in the bonds of peace.Thyestes[pushing the remains of the feast from him]: Enough of food and wine! One thing aloneCan swell my generous sum of happiness—If with my children I may share my joy.975Atreus:Believe that in the father's bosom restThe sons; both now and ever shall they beWith thee. No single part of these thy sonsShall e'er be taken from thee. Make request:What thou desirest will I freely give,And fill thee with thy loving family.Thou shalt be satisfied; be not afraid.980E'en now thy children, mingled with my own,Enjoy alone their youthful festival.They shall be summoned hither. Now beholdThis ancient cup, an heirloom of our house.Take thou and drink the wine which it contains.

Atreus[entering exultingly]: The peer of stars I move, high over all,885

And with exalted head attain the heavens!

Now are the reins of power within my hands,

And I am master of my father's throne.

I here renounce the gods, for I have gained

The height of my desires. It is enough,

And even I am satisfied. But why?

Nay, rather, will I finish my revenge,

And glut the father with his feast of death.890

The day has fled, lest shame should hold me back;

Act then, while yet the darkness veils the sky.

Oh, that I might restrain the fleeing gods,

And force them to behold the avenging feast!

But 'tis enough, if but the father sees.895

Though daylight aid me not, yet will I snatch

The shrouding darkness from thy miseries.

Too long with care-free, cheerful countenance

Thou liest at the feast. Now food enough,

And wine enough. For so great ills as these,900

Thyestes must his sober senses keep.

[To the slaves.]

Ye menial throng, spread wide the temple doors,

The festal hall reveal. 'Tis sweet to note

The father's frantic grief when first he sees

His children's gory heads; to catch his words,

To watch his color change; to see him sit,

All breathless with the shock, in dumb amaze,

In frozen horror at the gruesome sight.905

This is the sweet reward of all my toil—

To see his misery, e'en as it grows

Upon his soul.

[The doors are thrown open, showingThyestesat the banquet table.]

Now gleams with many a torch

The spacious banquet hall. See, there he lies

Upon his golden couch all richly decked

With tapestry, his wine-befuddled head

Upstayed upon his hand. Oh, happy me!910

The mightiest of the heavenly gods am I,

And king of kings! The fondest of my hopes

Is more than realized. His meal is done;

Now raises he his silver cup to drink.

Spare not the wine; there still remains the blood

Of thy three sons, and 'twill be well disguised915

With old red wine. Now be the revel done.

Now let the father drink the mingled blood

Of his own offspring; mine he would have drunk.

But see, he starts to sing a festal song,

With mind uncertain and with senses dim.

Thyestes[sits alone at the banquet table, half overcome with wine; he tries to sing and be gay, but in spite of this, some vague premonition of evil weighs upon his spirit]: O heart, long dulled with wretchedness,920Put by at last thine anxious cares.Oh, now let grief and fear depart;Let haunting hunger flee away,The grim companion of the lotOf trembling exiles; and disgrace,A heavy load for mourning souls.925More boots it from what height thou fall'st,Than to what depth. How noble is't,When fallen from the pinnacle,With dauntless step and firm, to treadThe lowly plain; and noble too,Though by a mass of cares o'erwhelmed,To bolster up the shattered throne930With neck unbending; and with soulHeroic, undismayed by ills,To stand erect beneath the weightOf ruined fortunes.But away,Ye gloomy clouds of fate; ye marksOf former misery, depart.935Thy happy fortune greet with faceOf joy, and utterly forgetThe old Thyestes. But alas!This fault is linked with wretchedness,That never can the woeful soulAccept returned prosperity.Though kindly fortune smile again,940He who has suffered finds it hardTo give himself to joy. But whyDost thou restrain me? Why forbidTo celebrate this festal day?Why wouldst thou have me weep, O grief,For no cause rising? Why with flowers,945Dost thou forbid to wreathe my hair?It does, it does forbid! For see,Upon my head the flowers of springHave withered; and my festal locks,Though dripping with the precious nard,Stand up in sudden dread; my cheeks,That have no cause to weep, are wet950With tears; and in the midst of speechI groan aloud. No doubt 'tis true,That grief, well trained in weeping, lovesTo melt away in tears; and oftThe wretched feel a strong desireTo weep their fill. E'en so I longTo cry aloud my wretchedness,To rend these gorgeous Tyrian robes,955And shriek my misery to heaven.My mind gives intimation darkOf coming grief, its own distressForeboding. So the sailor fearsThe raging tempest's near approach,When tranquil waters heave and swell,960Without a breath of wind. Thou fool,What grief, what rising storm of fateDost thou imagine nigh? Nay, nay,Believe thy brother; for thy fear—'Tis groundless, whatsoe'er it be,Or thou dost fear too late. Ah me,I would not be unhappy now;965But in my soul dim terror stalks,Nor can my eyes withhold their tears;And all for naught. What can it be?Am I possessed by grief or fear?Or can this some great rapture be,That weeps for joy?

Put by at last thine anxious cares.

Oh, now let grief and fear depart;

Let haunting hunger flee away,

The grim companion of the lot

Of trembling exiles; and disgrace,

A heavy load for mourning souls.925

More boots it from what height thou fall'st,

Than to what depth. How noble is't,

When fallen from the pinnacle,

With dauntless step and firm, to tread

The lowly plain; and noble too,

Though by a mass of cares o'erwhelmed,

To bolster up the shattered throne930

With neck unbending; and with soul

Heroic, undismayed by ills,

To stand erect beneath the weight

Of ruined fortunes.

But away,

Ye gloomy clouds of fate; ye marks

Of former misery, depart.935

Thy happy fortune greet with face

Of joy, and utterly forget

The old Thyestes. But alas!

This fault is linked with wretchedness,

That never can the woeful soul

Accept returned prosperity.

Though kindly fortune smile again,940

He who has suffered finds it hard

To give himself to joy. But why

Dost thou restrain me? Why forbid

To celebrate this festal day?

Why wouldst thou have me weep, O grief,

For no cause rising? Why with flowers,945

Dost thou forbid to wreathe my hair?

It does, it does forbid! For see,

Upon my head the flowers of spring

Have withered; and my festal locks,

Though dripping with the precious nard,

Stand up in sudden dread; my cheeks,

That have no cause to weep, are wet950

With tears; and in the midst of speech

I groan aloud. No doubt 'tis true,

That grief, well trained in weeping, loves

To melt away in tears; and oft

The wretched feel a strong desire

To weep their fill. E'en so I long

To cry aloud my wretchedness,

To rend these gorgeous Tyrian robes,955

And shriek my misery to heaven.

My mind gives intimation dark

Of coming grief, its own distress

Foreboding. So the sailor fears

The raging tempest's near approach,

When tranquil waters heave and swell,960

Without a breath of wind. Thou fool,

What grief, what rising storm of fate

Dost thou imagine nigh? Nay, nay,

Believe thy brother; for thy fear—

'Tis groundless, whatsoe'er it be,

Or thou dost fear too late. Ah me,

I would not be unhappy now;965

But in my soul dim terror stalks,

Nor can my eyes withhold their tears;

And all for naught. What can it be?

Am I possessed by grief or fear?

Or can this some great rapture be,

That weeps for joy?

Atreus[greeting his brother with effusive affection]: With one consent, my brother, let us keep970This festal day. For this the happy dayWhich shall the scepter 'stablish in thy hand,And link our family in the bonds of peace.

Atreus[greeting his brother with effusive affection]: With one consent, my brother, let us keep970

This festal day. For this the happy day

Which shall the scepter 'stablish in thy hand,

And link our family in the bonds of peace.

Thyestes[pushing the remains of the feast from him]: Enough of food and wine! One thing aloneCan swell my generous sum of happiness—If with my children I may share my joy.975

Thyestes[pushing the remains of the feast from him]: Enough of food and wine! One thing alone

Can swell my generous sum of happiness—

If with my children I may share my joy.975

Atreus:Believe that in the father's bosom restThe sons; both now and ever shall they beWith thee. No single part of these thy sonsShall e'er be taken from thee. Make request:What thou desirest will I freely give,And fill thee with thy loving family.Thou shalt be satisfied; be not afraid.980E'en now thy children, mingled with my own,Enjoy alone their youthful festival.They shall be summoned hither. Now beholdThis ancient cup, an heirloom of our house.Take thou and drink the wine which it contains.

Atreus:Believe that in the father's bosom rest

The sons; both now and ever shall they be

With thee. No single part of these thy sons

Shall e'er be taken from thee. Make request:

What thou desirest will I freely give,

And fill thee with thy loving family.

Thou shalt be satisfied; be not afraid.980

E'en now thy children, mingled with my own,

Enjoy alone their youthful festival.

They shall be summoned hither. Now behold

This ancient cup, an heirloom of our house.

Take thou and drink the wine which it contains.

[He handsThyestesthe cup filled with mingled blood and wine.]

Thyestes:I take my brother's proffered gift. But firstUnto our father's gods we'll pour a share,And then will drink the cup.985But what is this?My hands will not obey my will; the cup—How heavy it has grown, how it resistsMy grasp! And see how now the wine itself,Though lifted to my mouth, avoids the touch,And flees my disappointed lips. Behold,The table totters on the trembling floor;The lights burn dim; the very air is thick,990And, by the natural fires deserted, standsAll dull and lifeless 'twixt the day and night.What can it all portend? Now more and moreThe shattered heavens seem tottering to their fall;The darkness deepens, and the gloomy nightIn blacker night is plunged. And all the starsHave disappeared. Whatever this may mean,995Oh, spare my children, brother, spare, I pray;And let this gathering storm of evil burstUpon my head. Oh, give me back my sons!Atreus:Yes, I will give them back, and never moreShall they be taken from thy fond embrace.

Thyestes:I take my brother's proffered gift. But first

Unto our father's gods we'll pour a share,

And then will drink the cup.985

But what is this?

My hands will not obey my will; the cup—

How heavy it has grown, how it resists

My grasp! And see how now the wine itself,

Though lifted to my mouth, avoids the touch,

And flees my disappointed lips. Behold,

The table totters on the trembling floor;

The lights burn dim; the very air is thick,990

And, by the natural fires deserted, stands

All dull and lifeless 'twixt the day and night.

What can it all portend? Now more and more

The shattered heavens seem tottering to their fall;

The darkness deepens, and the gloomy night

In blacker night is plunged. And all the stars

Have disappeared. Whatever this may mean,995

Oh, spare my children, brother, spare, I pray;

And let this gathering storm of evil burst

Upon my head. Oh, give me back my sons!

Atreus:Yes, I will give them back, and never moreShall they be taken from thy fond embrace.

Atreus:Yes, I will give them back, and never more

Shall they be taken from thy fond embrace.

[Exit.]

Thyestes:What is this tumult rising in my breast?Why do my vitals quake? I feel a load1000Unbearable, and from my inmost heartCome groans of agony that are not mine.My children, come! your wretched father calls.Oh come! For when mine eyes behold you here,Perchance this care will pass away.—But whenceThose answering calls?Atreus[returning, with a covered platter in his hands]:Now spread thy loving arms.See, here they are.[He uncovers the platter revealing the severed heads ofThyestes'sons.]Dost recognize thy sons?1005Thyestes:I recognize my brother! How, O Earth,Canst thou endure such monstrous crime as this?Why dost thou not to everlasting shadeAnd Styx infernal cleave a yawning gulf,And sweep away to empty nothingnessThis guilty king with all his realm? And whyDost thou not raze, and utterly destroy1010The city of Mycenae? Both of usShould stand with Tantalus in punishment.If, far below the depths of Tartarus,There is a deeper hell, O Mother Earth,Thy strong foundations rend asunder wide,And send us thither to that lowest pit.1015There let us hide beneath all Acheron;Let damnéd shades above our guilty headsGo wandering; let fiery PhlegethonIn raging torrent pour his burning sandsAbove our place of exile.But the earthInsensate lies, and utterly unmoved.1020The gods have fled.Atreus:Nay, come with thankful heartReceive thy sons whom thou hast long desired.Enjoy them, kiss them, share among the threeThy fond embraces.Thyestes:And is this thy bond?Is this thy grace, thy fond fraternal faith?So dost thou cease to hate? I do not ask1025That I may have my sons again unharmed;But what in crime and hatred may be given,This I, a brother, from a brother ask:That I may bury them. Restore my sons,And thou shalt see their corpses burned at once.The father begs for naught that he may keep,But utterly destroy.1030Atreus:Thou hast thy sons,Whate'er of them remains; thou also hastWhate'er does not remain.Thyestes:What hast thou done?Hast fed them to the savage, greedy birds?Have beasts of prey devoured their tender flesh?Atreus:Thou hast thyself that impious banquet made.Thyestes:Oh, then, 'twas this that shamed the gods of heaven,1035And drove the day in horror back to dawn!Ah me, what cries shall voice, what plaints expressMy wretchedness? Where can I find the wordsThat can describe my woe? The severed headsAnd hands and mangled feet are there; for theseTheir sire, for all his greed, could not devour.1040But Oh, I feel within my vitals nowThat horrid thing which struggles to be free,But can no exit find. Give me the sword,Which even now is reeking with my blood,That it may set my children free from me.Thou wilt not give it me? Then let my breast1045Resound with crushing blows—but hold thy hand,Unhappy one, and spare the imprisoned shades.Oh, who has ever seen such crime as this?What dweller on the rough and hostile cragsOf Caucasus, or what Procrustes dire,The terror of the land of Attica?Lo I, the father, overwhelm my sons,1050And by those very sons am overwhelmed.Is there no limit to this crime of thine?Atreus:When one for its own sake commits a crime,There is a proper limit; but no endIs possible when vengeance through the crimeIs sought. E'en as it is, this deed of mineIs all too mild. I should have poured their bloodStraight from their gaping wounds into thy mouth,1055That thou mightst drink their very streams of life.But there my wrath was cheated of its dueBy overhaste.I smote them with the sword,I slaughtered them before the sacred shrine,And with their blood appeased our household gods;I hewed their lifeless bodies limb from limb;I carved them into bits, and part I seethed1060In brazen kettles, part before the fireOn spits I roasted. From their living limbsI carved the tender flesh, and saw it hissAnd sputter on the slender spit, the whileWith my own hands I kept the fire a-blaze.1065But all these things the father should have done.In this my vengeful grief has fallen short.With impious teeth he tore his slaughtered sons;But still in merciful unconsciousnessThe deed was done and suffered.Thyestes:O ye seas,Hemmed round by curving shores, give ear to this!Hear too, ye gods, wherever ye have fled.1070Ye lords of hades, hear; hear, O ye lands;And Night, all black and heavy with the pallOf Tartarus, attend unto my cry;For I am left to thee, and thou aloneDoth look in pity on my wretchedness,Thou, too, forsaken of the friendly stars;For I will raise no wicked prayers to thee,Naught for myself implore—what could I ask?1075For you, ye heavenly gods, be all my prayers.O thou, almighty ruler of the sky,Who sitt'st as lord upon the throne of heaven,Enwrap the universe in dismal clouds,Incite the winds to war on every side,And let thy thunders crash from pole to pole;1080Not with such lesser bolts as thou dost useAgainst the guiltless homes of common men,But those which overthrew the triple massOf heaped-up mountains, and those giant forms,Themselves like mountains huge: such arms employ;Hurl down such fires. Avenge the banished day;1085With thy consuming flames supply the lightWhich has been snatched from out the darkened heaven.Select us both as objects of thy wrath;Or if not both, then me; aim thou at me.With that three-forkéd bolt of thine transfix1090My guilty breast. If I would give my sonsTo burning and to fitting burial,I must myself be burned. But if my prayersDo not with heaven prevail, and if no godAims at the impious his fatal shaft;Then may eternal night brood o'er the earth,And hide these boundless crimes in endless shade.If thou, O sun, dost to thy purpose hold,1095And cease to shine, I supplicate no more.Atreus:Now do I praise my handiwork indeed;Now have I gained the palm of victory.My deed had failed entirely of its aim,Didst thou not suffer thus. Now may I trustThat those I call my sons are truly so,And faith that once my marriage bed was pureHas come again.Thyestes:What was my children's sin?1100Atreus:Because they were thychildren.Thyestes:But to thinkThat children to the father—Atreus:That indeed,I do confess it, gives me greatest joy:That thou art well assured they were thy sons.Thyestes:I call upon the gods of innocence—Atreus:Why not upon the gods of marriage call?Thyestes:Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?Atreus:Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed1105This horrid feast, but that thou wast not firstTo set it forth. This was thy fell intent,To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,And with their mother's aid attack my sons,And with a like destruction lay them low.But this one thing opposed—thou thought'st them thine.Thyestes:The gods will grant me vengeance. Unto them1110Do I intrust thy fitting penalty.Atreus:And to thy sons do I deliver thee.

Thyestes:What is this tumult rising in my breast?

Why do my vitals quake? I feel a load1000

Unbearable, and from my inmost heart

Come groans of agony that are not mine.

My children, come! your wretched father calls.

Oh come! For when mine eyes behold you here,

Perchance this care will pass away.—But whence

Those answering calls?

Atreus[returning, with a covered platter in his hands]:Now spread thy loving arms.See, here they are.[He uncovers the platter revealing the severed heads ofThyestes'sons.]Dost recognize thy sons?1005

Atreus[returning, with a covered platter in his hands]:Now spread thy loving arms.

See, here they are.

[He uncovers the platter revealing the severed heads ofThyestes'sons.]

Dost recognize thy sons?1005

Thyestes:I recognize my brother! How, O Earth,Canst thou endure such monstrous crime as this?Why dost thou not to everlasting shadeAnd Styx infernal cleave a yawning gulf,And sweep away to empty nothingnessThis guilty king with all his realm? And whyDost thou not raze, and utterly destroy1010The city of Mycenae? Both of usShould stand with Tantalus in punishment.If, far below the depths of Tartarus,There is a deeper hell, O Mother Earth,Thy strong foundations rend asunder wide,And send us thither to that lowest pit.1015There let us hide beneath all Acheron;Let damnéd shades above our guilty headsGo wandering; let fiery PhlegethonIn raging torrent pour his burning sandsAbove our place of exile.But the earthInsensate lies, and utterly unmoved.1020The gods have fled.

Thyestes:I recognize my brother! How, O Earth,

Canst thou endure such monstrous crime as this?

Why dost thou not to everlasting shade

And Styx infernal cleave a yawning gulf,

And sweep away to empty nothingness

This guilty king with all his realm? And why

Dost thou not raze, and utterly destroy1010

The city of Mycenae? Both of us

Should stand with Tantalus in punishment.

If, far below the depths of Tartarus,

There is a deeper hell, O Mother Earth,

Thy strong foundations rend asunder wide,

And send us thither to that lowest pit.1015

There let us hide beneath all Acheron;

Let damnéd shades above our guilty heads

Go wandering; let fiery Phlegethon

In raging torrent pour his burning sands

Above our place of exile.

But the earth

Insensate lies, and utterly unmoved.1020

The gods have fled.

Atreus:Nay, come with thankful heartReceive thy sons whom thou hast long desired.Enjoy them, kiss them, share among the threeThy fond embraces.

Atreus:Nay, come with thankful heart

Receive thy sons whom thou hast long desired.

Enjoy them, kiss them, share among the three

Thy fond embraces.

Thyestes:And is this thy bond?Is this thy grace, thy fond fraternal faith?So dost thou cease to hate? I do not ask1025That I may have my sons again unharmed;But what in crime and hatred may be given,This I, a brother, from a brother ask:That I may bury them. Restore my sons,And thou shalt see their corpses burned at once.The father begs for naught that he may keep,But utterly destroy.1030

Thyestes:And is this thy bond?

Is this thy grace, thy fond fraternal faith?

So dost thou cease to hate? I do not ask1025

That I may have my sons again unharmed;

But what in crime and hatred may be given,

This I, a brother, from a brother ask:

That I may bury them. Restore my sons,

And thou shalt see their corpses burned at once.

The father begs for naught that he may keep,

But utterly destroy.1030

Atreus:Thou hast thy sons,Whate'er of them remains; thou also hastWhate'er does not remain.

Atreus:Thou hast thy sons,

Whate'er of them remains; thou also hast

Whate'er does not remain.

Thyestes:What hast thou done?Hast fed them to the savage, greedy birds?Have beasts of prey devoured their tender flesh?

Thyestes:What hast thou done?

Hast fed them to the savage, greedy birds?

Have beasts of prey devoured their tender flesh?

Atreus:Thou hast thyself that impious banquet made.

Thyestes:Oh, then, 'twas this that shamed the gods of heaven,1035And drove the day in horror back to dawn!Ah me, what cries shall voice, what plaints expressMy wretchedness? Where can I find the wordsThat can describe my woe? The severed headsAnd hands and mangled feet are there; for theseTheir sire, for all his greed, could not devour.1040But Oh, I feel within my vitals nowThat horrid thing which struggles to be free,But can no exit find. Give me the sword,Which even now is reeking with my blood,That it may set my children free from me.Thou wilt not give it me? Then let my breast1045Resound with crushing blows—but hold thy hand,Unhappy one, and spare the imprisoned shades.Oh, who has ever seen such crime as this?What dweller on the rough and hostile cragsOf Caucasus, or what Procrustes dire,The terror of the land of Attica?Lo I, the father, overwhelm my sons,1050And by those very sons am overwhelmed.Is there no limit to this crime of thine?

Thyestes:Oh, then, 'twas this that shamed the gods of heaven,1035

And drove the day in horror back to dawn!

Ah me, what cries shall voice, what plaints express

My wretchedness? Where can I find the words

That can describe my woe? The severed heads

And hands and mangled feet are there; for these

Their sire, for all his greed, could not devour.1040

But Oh, I feel within my vitals now

That horrid thing which struggles to be free,

But can no exit find. Give me the sword,

Which even now is reeking with my blood,

That it may set my children free from me.

Thou wilt not give it me? Then let my breast1045

Resound with crushing blows—but hold thy hand,

Unhappy one, and spare the imprisoned shades.

Oh, who has ever seen such crime as this?

What dweller on the rough and hostile crags

Of Caucasus, or what Procrustes dire,

The terror of the land of Attica?

Lo I, the father, overwhelm my sons,1050

And by those very sons am overwhelmed.

Is there no limit to this crime of thine?

Atreus:When one for its own sake commits a crime,There is a proper limit; but no endIs possible when vengeance through the crimeIs sought. E'en as it is, this deed of mineIs all too mild. I should have poured their bloodStraight from their gaping wounds into thy mouth,1055That thou mightst drink their very streams of life.But there my wrath was cheated of its dueBy overhaste.I smote them with the sword,I slaughtered them before the sacred shrine,And with their blood appeased our household gods;I hewed their lifeless bodies limb from limb;I carved them into bits, and part I seethed1060In brazen kettles, part before the fireOn spits I roasted. From their living limbsI carved the tender flesh, and saw it hissAnd sputter on the slender spit, the whileWith my own hands I kept the fire a-blaze.1065But all these things the father should have done.In this my vengeful grief has fallen short.With impious teeth he tore his slaughtered sons;But still in merciful unconsciousnessThe deed was done and suffered.

Atreus:When one for its own sake commits a crime,

There is a proper limit; but no end

Is possible when vengeance through the crime

Is sought. E'en as it is, this deed of mine

Is all too mild. I should have poured their blood

Straight from their gaping wounds into thy mouth,1055

That thou mightst drink their very streams of life.

But there my wrath was cheated of its due

By overhaste.

I smote them with the sword,

I slaughtered them before the sacred shrine,

And with their blood appeased our household gods;

I hewed their lifeless bodies limb from limb;

I carved them into bits, and part I seethed1060

In brazen kettles, part before the fire

On spits I roasted. From their living limbs

I carved the tender flesh, and saw it hiss

And sputter on the slender spit, the while

With my own hands I kept the fire a-blaze.1065

But all these things the father should have done.

In this my vengeful grief has fallen short.

With impious teeth he tore his slaughtered sons;

But still in merciful unconsciousness

The deed was done and suffered.

Thyestes:O ye seas,Hemmed round by curving shores, give ear to this!Hear too, ye gods, wherever ye have fled.1070Ye lords of hades, hear; hear, O ye lands;And Night, all black and heavy with the pallOf Tartarus, attend unto my cry;For I am left to thee, and thou aloneDoth look in pity on my wretchedness,Thou, too, forsaken of the friendly stars;For I will raise no wicked prayers to thee,Naught for myself implore—what could I ask?1075For you, ye heavenly gods, be all my prayers.O thou, almighty ruler of the sky,Who sitt'st as lord upon the throne of heaven,Enwrap the universe in dismal clouds,Incite the winds to war on every side,And let thy thunders crash from pole to pole;1080Not with such lesser bolts as thou dost useAgainst the guiltless homes of common men,But those which overthrew the triple massOf heaped-up mountains, and those giant forms,Themselves like mountains huge: such arms employ;Hurl down such fires. Avenge the banished day;1085With thy consuming flames supply the lightWhich has been snatched from out the darkened heaven.Select us both as objects of thy wrath;Or if not both, then me; aim thou at me.With that three-forkéd bolt of thine transfix1090My guilty breast. If I would give my sonsTo burning and to fitting burial,I must myself be burned. But if my prayersDo not with heaven prevail, and if no godAims at the impious his fatal shaft;Then may eternal night brood o'er the earth,And hide these boundless crimes in endless shade.If thou, O sun, dost to thy purpose hold,1095And cease to shine, I supplicate no more.

Thyestes:O ye seas,

Hemmed round by curving shores, give ear to this!

Hear too, ye gods, wherever ye have fled.1070

Ye lords of hades, hear; hear, O ye lands;

And Night, all black and heavy with the pall

Of Tartarus, attend unto my cry;

For I am left to thee, and thou alone

Doth look in pity on my wretchedness,

Thou, too, forsaken of the friendly stars;

For I will raise no wicked prayers to thee,

Naught for myself implore—what could I ask?1075

For you, ye heavenly gods, be all my prayers.

O thou, almighty ruler of the sky,

Who sitt'st as lord upon the throne of heaven,

Enwrap the universe in dismal clouds,

Incite the winds to war on every side,

And let thy thunders crash from pole to pole;1080

Not with such lesser bolts as thou dost use

Against the guiltless homes of common men,

But those which overthrew the triple mass

Of heaped-up mountains, and those giant forms,

Themselves like mountains huge: such arms employ;

Hurl down such fires. Avenge the banished day;1085

With thy consuming flames supply the light

Which has been snatched from out the darkened heaven.

Select us both as objects of thy wrath;

Or if not both, then me; aim thou at me.

With that three-forkéd bolt of thine transfix1090

My guilty breast. If I would give my sons

To burning and to fitting burial,

I must myself be burned. But if my prayers

Do not with heaven prevail, and if no god

Aims at the impious his fatal shaft;

Then may eternal night brood o'er the earth,

And hide these boundless crimes in endless shade.

If thou, O sun, dost to thy purpose hold,1095

And cease to shine, I supplicate no more.

Atreus:Now do I praise my handiwork indeed;Now have I gained the palm of victory.My deed had failed entirely of its aim,Didst thou not suffer thus. Now may I trustThat those I call my sons are truly so,And faith that once my marriage bed was pureHas come again.

Atreus:Now do I praise my handiwork indeed;

Now have I gained the palm of victory.

My deed had failed entirely of its aim,

Didst thou not suffer thus. Now may I trust

That those I call my sons are truly so,

And faith that once my marriage bed was pure

Has come again.

Thyestes:What was my children's sin?1100

Atreus:Because they were thychildren.

Thyestes:But to thinkThat children to the father—

Thyestes:But to think

That children to the father—

Atreus:That indeed,I do confess it, gives me greatest joy:That thou art well assured they were thy sons.

Atreus:That indeed,

I do confess it, gives me greatest joy:

That thou art well assured they were thy sons.

Thyestes:I call upon the gods of innocence—

Atreus:Why not upon the gods of marriage call?

Thyestes:Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?

Atreus:Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed1105This horrid feast, but that thou wast not firstTo set it forth. This was thy fell intent,To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,And with their mother's aid attack my sons,And with a like destruction lay them low.But this one thing opposed—thou thought'st them thine.

Atreus:Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:

Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.

Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed1105

This horrid feast, but that thou wast not first

To set it forth. This was thy fell intent,

To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,

And with their mother's aid attack my sons,

And with a like destruction lay them low.

But this one thing opposed—thou thought'st them thine.

Thyestes:The gods will grant me vengeance. Unto them1110Do I intrust thy fitting penalty.

Thyestes:The gods will grant me vengeance. Unto them1110

Do I intrust thy fitting penalty.

Atreus:And to thy sons do I deliver thee.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The sceneis laid on the seashore, with the smouldering ruins of Troy in the background. The time is the day before the embarkation of the Greeks on their homeward journey.

The long and toilsome siege of Troy is done. Her stately palaces and massive walls have been overthrown and lie darkening the sky with their still smouldering ruins. Her heroic defenders are either slain or scattered seeking other homes in distant lands. The victorious Greeks have gathered the rich spoils of Troy upon the shore, among these, the Trojan women who have suffered the usual fate of women when a city is sacked. They await the lot which shall assign them to their Grecian lords and scatter them among the cities of their foes. All things are ready for the start.

But now the ghost of Achilles has risen from the tomb, and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him before the Greeks shall be allowed to sail away. And Calchas, also, bids that Astyanax be slain, for only thus can Greece be safe from any future Trojan war. And thus the Trojan captives who have so long endured the pains of war, must suffer still this double tragedy.

Hecuba:Whoe'er in royal power has put his trust,And proudly lords it in his princely halls;Who fears no shifting of the winds of fate,But fondly gives his soul to present joys:Let him my lot and thine, O Troy, behold.For of a truth did fortune never showIn plainer wise the frailty of the prop5That doth support a king; since by her handBrought low, behold, proud Asia's capitol,The work of heavenly hands, lies desolate.From many lands the warring princes cameTo aid her cause: from where the TanaïsHis frigid waves in seven-fold channel pours;And that far land which greets the newborn day,10Where Tigris mingles with the ruddy seaHis tepid waves; and where the Amazon,Within the view of wandering ScythiaArrays her virgin ranks by Pontus' shores.Yet here, o'erthrown, our ancient city lies,Herself upon herself in ruins laid;Her once proud walls in smouldering heaps recline,15Mingling their ashes with our fallen homes.The palace flames on high, while far and nearThe stately city of AssaracusIs wrapped in gloomy smoke. Yet e'en the flamesKeep not the victor's greedy hands from spoil;And Troy, though in the grasp of fiery death,Is pillaged still. The face of heaven is hidBy that dense, wreathing smoke; the shining day,As if o'erspread by some thick, lowering cloud,20Grows black and foul beneath the ashy storm.The victor stands with still unsated wrath,Eyeing that stubborn town of Ilium,And scarce at last forgives those ten long yearsOf bloody strife. Anon, as he beholdsThat mighty city, though in ruins laid,He starts with fear; and though he plainly seesHis foe o'ercome, he scarce can comprehend25That she could be o'ercome. The Dardan spoilIs heaped on high, a booty vast, which Greece,In all her thousand ships, can scarce bestow.Now witness, ye divinities whose faceWas set against our state, my fatherlandIn ashes laid; and thou, proud king of Troy,Who in thy city's overthrow hast foundA fitting tomb; thou shade of mighty Hector,In whose proud strength abiding, Ilium stood;30Likewise ye thronging ghosts, my children all,But lesser shades: whatever ill has come;Whatever Phoebus' bride with frenzied speech,Though all discredited, hath prophesied;35I, Hecuba, myself foresaw, what time,With unborn child o'erweighed, I dreamed a dreamThat I had borne a flaming brand. And though,Cassandra-like, I told my fears, my warnings,Like our Cassandra's words in after time,Were all in vain. 'Tis not the Ithacan,Nor yet his trusty comrade of the night,Nor that false traitor, Sinon, who has castThe flaming brands that wrought our overthrow:Mine is the fire—'tis by my brands ye burn.40But why dost thou bewail the city's fall,With ancient gossip's prattle? Turn thy mind,Unhappy one, to nearer woes than these.Troy's fall, though sad, is ancient story now.I saw the horrid slaughter of the king,Defiling the holy altar with its stain,45When bold Aeacides, with savage handEntwined in helpless Priam's hoary locks,Drew back his sacred head, and thrust the swordHilt-buried in his unresisting side.And when he plucked the deep-driven weapon back,So weak and bloodless was our agéd king,The deadly blade came almost stainless forth.50Whose thirst for blood had not been satisfiedBy that old man just slipping o'er the vergeOf life? Whom would not heavenly witnessesRestrain from crime? Who would not stay his handBefore the sacred altar, last resortOf fallen thrones? Yet he, our noble Priam,The king, and father of so many kings,Lies like the merest peasant unentombed;55And, though all Troy's aflame, there's not a brandTo light his pyre and give him sepulture.And still the heavenly powers are not appeased.Behold the urn; and, subject to its lot,The maids and matrons of our princely line,Who wait their future lords. To whom shall I,An agéd and unprized allotment, fall?One Grecian lord has fixed his longing eyesOn Hector's queen; another prays the lotTo grant to him the bride of Helenus;60Antenor's spouse is object of desire,And e'en thy hand, Cassandra, hath its suitor:My lot alone they deprecate and fear.And can ye cease your plaints? O captive throng,Come beat upon your breasts, and let the soundOf your loud lamentations rise anew,The while we celebrate in fitting wiseTroy's funeral; let fatal Ida, seat65Of that ill-omened judgment, straight resoundWith echoes of our pitiful refrain.Chorus:Not an untrained band, to tears unknown,Thou callest to grief, for our tears have rainedIn streams unending through the years,Since the time when the Phrygian guest arrivedAt the friendly court of Tyndarus,70Sailing the sea in his vessel framedFrom the sacred pines of Cybele.Ten winters have whitened Ida's slopes,So often stripped for our funeral pyres;Ten years have ripened the waving grainWhich the trembling reaper has garnered inFrom wide Sigean harvest-fields:75But never a day was without its grief,Never a night but renewed our woe.Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide,80Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.Hecuba:Then, trusty comrades of our fate,Unbind your tresses and let them flowOver your shoulders bent with grief,The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust85Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,Strip from your breasts their covering;Why veil your beauty? Shame itself90Is held in captive bonds. And nowLet your hands wave free to the quickening blowsThat resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready,And thus it is well. I behold once moreMy old-time Trojan band. Now stoopAnd fill your hands; 'tis right to takeHer dust at least from fallen Troy.Now let the long-pent grief leap forth,95And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe.Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.Chorus:Our hair, in many a funeral torn,100We loose; and o'er our streaming locksTroy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn.From our shoulders the veiling garments fall,105And our breasts invite the smiting hands.Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength.Let the distant shores resound with our mournings;And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountainsRepeat all our wailings, not, after her wont,110With curt iteration returning the end.Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the skyRecord all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands,With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise.With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting—115Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.Hecuba:Our hero, for thee the blows are descending,On arms and shoulders that stream with our blood;For thee our brows endure rough strokes,And our breasts are mangled with pitiless hands.120Now flow the old wounds, reopened anew,That bled at thy death, the chief cause of our sorrow.O prop of our country, delayer of fate,Our Ilium's bulwark, our mighty defender,125Our strong tower wast thou; secure on thy shoulders,Our city stood leaning through ten weary years.By thy power supported, with thee has she fallen,Our country and Hector united in doom.Now turn to another the tide of your mourning;130Let Priam receive his due meed of your tears.Chorus:Receive our lamentings, O Phrygia's ruler;We weep for thy death, who wast twice overcome.Naught once did Troy suffer while thou didst rule o'er her:Twice fell her proud walls from the blows of the Grecians,135And twice was she pierced by great Hercules' darts.Now all of our Hecuba's offspring have perished,And the proud band of kings who came to our aid;Thy death is the last—our father, our ruler—Struck down as a victim to Jove the Almighty,140All helpless and lone, a mute corpse on the ground.Hecuba:Nay, give to another your tears and your mourning,And weep not the death of Priam our king.But call ye him blessed the rather; for free,To the deep world of shadows he travels, and never145Upon his bowed neck the base yoke shall he bear.No proud sons of Atreus shall call him their captive,No crafty Ulysses his eyes shall behold;As boast of their triumphs he shall not bear onward150In humble submission their prizes of war.Those free, royal hands to the scepter accustomed,Shall never be bound at his back like a slave,As he follows the car of the triumphing chieftain,A king led in fetters, the gaze of the town.155Chorus:Hail! Priam the blessed we all do proclaim him;For himself and his kingdom he rules yet below;Now through the still depths of Elysium's shadows'Midst calm, happy spirits he seeks the great Hector.160Then hail, happy Priam! Hail all who in battleHave lost life and country, but liberty gained.

Hecuba:Whoe'er in royal power has put his trust,

And proudly lords it in his princely halls;

Who fears no shifting of the winds of fate,

But fondly gives his soul to present joys:

Let him my lot and thine, O Troy, behold.

For of a truth did fortune never show

In plainer wise the frailty of the prop5

That doth support a king; since by her hand

Brought low, behold, proud Asia's capitol,

The work of heavenly hands, lies desolate.

From many lands the warring princes came

To aid her cause: from where the Tanaïs

His frigid waves in seven-fold channel pours;

And that far land which greets the newborn day,10

Where Tigris mingles with the ruddy sea

His tepid waves; and where the Amazon,

Within the view of wandering Scythia

Arrays her virgin ranks by Pontus' shores.

Yet here, o'erthrown, our ancient city lies,

Herself upon herself in ruins laid;

Her once proud walls in smouldering heaps recline,15

Mingling their ashes with our fallen homes.

The palace flames on high, while far and near

The stately city of Assaracus

Is wrapped in gloomy smoke. Yet e'en the flames

Keep not the victor's greedy hands from spoil;

And Troy, though in the grasp of fiery death,

Is pillaged still. The face of heaven is hid

By that dense, wreathing smoke; the shining day,

As if o'erspread by some thick, lowering cloud,20

Grows black and foul beneath the ashy storm.

The victor stands with still unsated wrath,

Eyeing that stubborn town of Ilium,

And scarce at last forgives those ten long years

Of bloody strife. Anon, as he beholds

That mighty city, though in ruins laid,

He starts with fear; and though he plainly sees

His foe o'ercome, he scarce can comprehend25

That she could be o'ercome. The Dardan spoil

Is heaped on high, a booty vast, which Greece,

In all her thousand ships, can scarce bestow.

Now witness, ye divinities whose face

Was set against our state, my fatherland

In ashes laid; and thou, proud king of Troy,

Who in thy city's overthrow hast found

A fitting tomb; thou shade of mighty Hector,

In whose proud strength abiding, Ilium stood;30

Likewise ye thronging ghosts, my children all,

But lesser shades: whatever ill has come;

Whatever Phoebus' bride with frenzied speech,

Though all discredited, hath prophesied;35

I, Hecuba, myself foresaw, what time,

With unborn child o'erweighed, I dreamed a dream

That I had borne a flaming brand. And though,

Cassandra-like, I told my fears, my warnings,

Like our Cassandra's words in after time,

Were all in vain. 'Tis not the Ithacan,

Nor yet his trusty comrade of the night,

Nor that false traitor, Sinon, who has cast

The flaming brands that wrought our overthrow:

Mine is the fire—'tis by my brands ye burn.40

But why dost thou bewail the city's fall,

With ancient gossip's prattle? Turn thy mind,

Unhappy one, to nearer woes than these.

Troy's fall, though sad, is ancient story now.

I saw the horrid slaughter of the king,

Defiling the holy altar with its stain,45

When bold Aeacides, with savage hand

Entwined in helpless Priam's hoary locks,

Drew back his sacred head, and thrust the sword

Hilt-buried in his unresisting side.

And when he plucked the deep-driven weapon back,

So weak and bloodless was our agéd king,

The deadly blade came almost stainless forth.50

Whose thirst for blood had not been satisfied

By that old man just slipping o'er the verge

Of life? Whom would not heavenly witnesses

Restrain from crime? Who would not stay his hand

Before the sacred altar, last resort

Of fallen thrones? Yet he, our noble Priam,

The king, and father of so many kings,

Lies like the merest peasant unentombed;55

And, though all Troy's aflame, there's not a brand

To light his pyre and give him sepulture.

And still the heavenly powers are not appeased.

Behold the urn; and, subject to its lot,

The maids and matrons of our princely line,

Who wait their future lords. To whom shall I,

An agéd and unprized allotment, fall?

One Grecian lord has fixed his longing eyes

On Hector's queen; another prays the lot

To grant to him the bride of Helenus;60

Antenor's spouse is object of desire,

And e'en thy hand, Cassandra, hath its suitor:

My lot alone they deprecate and fear.

And can ye cease your plaints? O captive throng,

Come beat upon your breasts, and let the sound

Of your loud lamentations rise anew,

The while we celebrate in fitting wise

Troy's funeral; let fatal Ida, seat65

Of that ill-omened judgment, straight resound

With echoes of our pitiful refrain.

Chorus:Not an untrained band, to tears unknown,Thou callest to grief, for our tears have rainedIn streams unending through the years,Since the time when the Phrygian guest arrivedAt the friendly court of Tyndarus,70Sailing the sea in his vessel framedFrom the sacred pines of Cybele.Ten winters have whitened Ida's slopes,So often stripped for our funeral pyres;Ten years have ripened the waving grainWhich the trembling reaper has garnered inFrom wide Sigean harvest-fields:75But never a day was without its grief,Never a night but renewed our woe.Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide,80Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.

Chorus:Not an untrained band, to tears unknown,

Thou callest to grief, for our tears have rained

In streams unending through the years,

Since the time when the Phrygian guest arrived

At the friendly court of Tyndarus,70

Sailing the sea in his vessel framed

From the sacred pines of Cybele.

Ten winters have whitened Ida's slopes,

So often stripped for our funeral pyres;

Ten years have ripened the waving grain

Which the trembling reaper has garnered in

From wide Sigean harvest-fields:75

But never a day was without its grief,

Never a night but renewed our woe.

Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;

And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide,80

Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,

Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.

Hecuba:Then, trusty comrades of our fate,Unbind your tresses and let them flowOver your shoulders bent with grief,The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust85Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,Strip from your breasts their covering;Why veil your beauty? Shame itself90Is held in captive bonds. And nowLet your hands wave free to the quickening blowsThat resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready,And thus it is well. I behold once moreMy old-time Trojan band. Now stoopAnd fill your hands; 'tis right to takeHer dust at least from fallen Troy.Now let the long-pent grief leap forth,95And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe.Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.

Hecuba:Then, trusty comrades of our fate,

Unbind your tresses and let them flow

Over your shoulders bent with grief,

The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust85

Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,

Strip from your breasts their covering;

Why veil your beauty? Shame itself90

Is held in captive bonds. And now

Let your hands wave free to the quickening blows

That resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready,

And thus it is well. I behold once more

My old-time Trojan band. Now stoop

And fill your hands; 'tis right to take

Her dust at least from fallen Troy.

Now let the long-pent grief leap forth,95

And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe.

Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.

Chorus:Our hair, in many a funeral torn,100We loose; and o'er our streaming locksTroy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn.From our shoulders the veiling garments fall,105And our breasts invite the smiting hands.Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength.Let the distant shores resound with our mournings;And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountainsRepeat all our wailings, not, after her wont,110With curt iteration returning the end.Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the skyRecord all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands,With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise.With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting—115Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.

Chorus:Our hair, in many a funeral torn,100

We loose; and o'er our streaming locks

Troy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn.

From our shoulders the veiling garments fall,105

And our breasts invite the smiting hands.

Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength.

Let the distant shores resound with our mournings;

And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountains

Repeat all our wailings, not, after her wont,110

With curt iteration returning the end.

Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the sky

Record all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands,

With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise.

With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting—115

Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.

Hecuba:Our hero, for thee the blows are descending,On arms and shoulders that stream with our blood;For thee our brows endure rough strokes,And our breasts are mangled with pitiless hands.120Now flow the old wounds, reopened anew,That bled at thy death, the chief cause of our sorrow.O prop of our country, delayer of fate,Our Ilium's bulwark, our mighty defender,125Our strong tower wast thou; secure on thy shoulders,Our city stood leaning through ten weary years.By thy power supported, with thee has she fallen,Our country and Hector united in doom.Now turn to another the tide of your mourning;130Let Priam receive his due meed of your tears.

Hecuba:Our hero, for thee the blows are descending,

On arms and shoulders that stream with our blood;

For thee our brows endure rough strokes,

And our breasts are mangled with pitiless hands.120

Now flow the old wounds, reopened anew,

That bled at thy death, the chief cause of our sorrow.

O prop of our country, delayer of fate,

Our Ilium's bulwark, our mighty defender,125

Our strong tower wast thou; secure on thy shoulders,

Our city stood leaning through ten weary years.

By thy power supported, with thee has she fallen,

Our country and Hector united in doom.

Now turn to another the tide of your mourning;130

Let Priam receive his due meed of your tears.

Chorus:Receive our lamentings, O Phrygia's ruler;We weep for thy death, who wast twice overcome.Naught once did Troy suffer while thou didst rule o'er her:Twice fell her proud walls from the blows of the Grecians,135And twice was she pierced by great Hercules' darts.Now all of our Hecuba's offspring have perished,And the proud band of kings who came to our aid;Thy death is the last—our father, our ruler—Struck down as a victim to Jove the Almighty,140All helpless and lone, a mute corpse on the ground.

Chorus:Receive our lamentings, O Phrygia's ruler;

We weep for thy death, who wast twice overcome.

Naught once did Troy suffer while thou didst rule o'er her:

Twice fell her proud walls from the blows of the Grecians,135

And twice was she pierced by great Hercules' darts.

Now all of our Hecuba's offspring have perished,

And the proud band of kings who came to our aid;

Thy death is the last—our father, our ruler—

Struck down as a victim to Jove the Almighty,140

All helpless and lone, a mute corpse on the ground.

Hecuba:Nay, give to another your tears and your mourning,And weep not the death of Priam our king.But call ye him blessed the rather; for free,To the deep world of shadows he travels, and never145Upon his bowed neck the base yoke shall he bear.No proud sons of Atreus shall call him their captive,No crafty Ulysses his eyes shall behold;As boast of their triumphs he shall not bear onward150In humble submission their prizes of war.Those free, royal hands to the scepter accustomed,Shall never be bound at his back like a slave,As he follows the car of the triumphing chieftain,A king led in fetters, the gaze of the town.155

Hecuba:Nay, give to another your tears and your mourning,

And weep not the death of Priam our king.

But call ye him blessed the rather; for free,

To the deep world of shadows he travels, and never145

Upon his bowed neck the base yoke shall he bear.

No proud sons of Atreus shall call him their captive,

No crafty Ulysses his eyes shall behold;

As boast of their triumphs he shall not bear onward150

In humble submission their prizes of war.

Those free, royal hands to the scepter accustomed,

Shall never be bound at his back like a slave,

As he follows the car of the triumphing chieftain,

A king led in fetters, the gaze of the town.155

Chorus:Hail! Priam the blessed we all do proclaim him;For himself and his kingdom he rules yet below;Now through the still depths of Elysium's shadows'Midst calm, happy spirits he seeks the great Hector.160Then hail, happy Priam! Hail all who in battleHave lost life and country, but liberty gained.

Chorus:Hail! Priam the blessed we all do proclaim him;

For himself and his kingdom he rules yet below;

Now through the still depths of Elysium's shadows

'Midst calm, happy spirits he seeks the great Hector.160

Then hail, happy Priam! Hail all who in battle

Have lost life and country, but liberty gained.

Talthybius:Alas, 'tis thus the Greeks are ever doomedTo lie impatient of the winds' delay,Whether on war or homeward journey bent.165Chorus:Tell thou the cause of this the Greeks' delay.What god obstructs the homeward-leading paths?Talthybius:My soul doth quake, and all my limbs with fearDo tremble. Scarce is credence given to talesThat do transcend the truth. And yet I swear,With my own eyes I saw what I relate.Now with his level rays the morning sun170Just grazed the summits of the hills, and dayHad vanquished night; when suddenly the earth,'Mid rumblings hidden deep and terrible,To her profoundest depths convulsive rocked.The tree-tops trembled, and the lofty grovesGave forth a thunderous sound of crashing boughs;While down from Ida's rent and rugged slopes175The loosened bowlders rolled. And not aloneThe earth did quake: behold, the swelling seaPerceived its own Achilles drawing near,And spread its waves abroad. Then did the groundAsunder yawn, revealing mighty caves,And gave a path from Erebus to earth.And then the high-heaped sepulcher was rent,180From which there sprang Achilles' mighty shade,In guise as when, in practice for thy fates,O Troy, he prostrate laid the Thracian arms,Or slew the son of Neptune, doomed to wearThe swan's white plumes; or when, amidst the ranksIn furious battle raging, he the streams185Did choke with corpses of the slain, and XanthusCrept sluggishly along with bloody waves;Or when he stood as victor in his car,Plying the reins and dragging in the dustGreat Hector's body and the Trojan state.So there he stood and filled the spreading shore190With wrathful words: "Go, get you gone, ye raceOf weaklings, bear away the honors dueMy manes; loose your thankless ships, and sailAcross my seas. By no slight offeringDid ye aforetime stay Achilles' wrath;And now a greater shall ye pay. Behold,Polyxena, once pledged to me in life,195Must by the hand of Pyrrhus to my shadeBe led, and with her blood my tomb bedew."So spake Achilles and the realms of dayHe left for night profound, reseeking Dis;And as he plunged within the depths of earth,The yawning chasm closed and left no trace.The sea lies tranquil, motionless; the windIts boisterous threats abates, and where but now200The storm-tossed waters raged in angry mood,The gentle waves lap harmless on the shore;While from afar the band of Tritons soundsThe marriage chorus of their kindred lord.

Talthybius:Alas, 'tis thus the Greeks are ever doomedTo lie impatient of the winds' delay,Whether on war or homeward journey bent.165

Talthybius:Alas, 'tis thus the Greeks are ever doomed

To lie impatient of the winds' delay,

Whether on war or homeward journey bent.165

Chorus:Tell thou the cause of this the Greeks' delay.What god obstructs the homeward-leading paths?

Chorus:Tell thou the cause of this the Greeks' delay.

What god obstructs the homeward-leading paths?

Talthybius:My soul doth quake, and all my limbs with fearDo tremble. Scarce is credence given to talesThat do transcend the truth. And yet I swear,With my own eyes I saw what I relate.Now with his level rays the morning sun170Just grazed the summits of the hills, and dayHad vanquished night; when suddenly the earth,'Mid rumblings hidden deep and terrible,To her profoundest depths convulsive rocked.The tree-tops trembled, and the lofty grovesGave forth a thunderous sound of crashing boughs;While down from Ida's rent and rugged slopes175The loosened bowlders rolled. And not aloneThe earth did quake: behold, the swelling seaPerceived its own Achilles drawing near,And spread its waves abroad. Then did the groundAsunder yawn, revealing mighty caves,And gave a path from Erebus to earth.And then the high-heaped sepulcher was rent,180From which there sprang Achilles' mighty shade,In guise as when, in practice for thy fates,O Troy, he prostrate laid the Thracian arms,Or slew the son of Neptune, doomed to wearThe swan's white plumes; or when, amidst the ranksIn furious battle raging, he the streams185Did choke with corpses of the slain, and XanthusCrept sluggishly along with bloody waves;Or when he stood as victor in his car,Plying the reins and dragging in the dustGreat Hector's body and the Trojan state.So there he stood and filled the spreading shore190With wrathful words: "Go, get you gone, ye raceOf weaklings, bear away the honors dueMy manes; loose your thankless ships, and sailAcross my seas. By no slight offeringDid ye aforetime stay Achilles' wrath;And now a greater shall ye pay. Behold,Polyxena, once pledged to me in life,195Must by the hand of Pyrrhus to my shadeBe led, and with her blood my tomb bedew."So spake Achilles and the realms of dayHe left for night profound, reseeking Dis;And as he plunged within the depths of earth,The yawning chasm closed and left no trace.The sea lies tranquil, motionless; the windIts boisterous threats abates, and where but now200The storm-tossed waters raged in angry mood,The gentle waves lap harmless on the shore;While from afar the band of Tritons soundsThe marriage chorus of their kindred lord.

Talthybius:My soul doth quake, and all my limbs with fear

Do tremble. Scarce is credence given to tales

That do transcend the truth. And yet I swear,

With my own eyes I saw what I relate.

Now with his level rays the morning sun170

Just grazed the summits of the hills, and day

Had vanquished night; when suddenly the earth,

'Mid rumblings hidden deep and terrible,

To her profoundest depths convulsive rocked.

The tree-tops trembled, and the lofty groves

Gave forth a thunderous sound of crashing boughs;

While down from Ida's rent and rugged slopes175

The loosened bowlders rolled. And not alone

The earth did quake: behold, the swelling sea

Perceived its own Achilles drawing near,

And spread its waves abroad. Then did the ground

Asunder yawn, revealing mighty caves,

And gave a path from Erebus to earth.

And then the high-heaped sepulcher was rent,180

From which there sprang Achilles' mighty shade,

In guise as when, in practice for thy fates,

O Troy, he prostrate laid the Thracian arms,

Or slew the son of Neptune, doomed to wear

The swan's white plumes; or when, amidst the ranks

In furious battle raging, he the streams185

Did choke with corpses of the slain, and Xanthus

Crept sluggishly along with bloody waves;

Or when he stood as victor in his car,

Plying the reins and dragging in the dust

Great Hector's body and the Trojan state.

So there he stood and filled the spreading shore190

With wrathful words: "Go, get you gone, ye race

Of weaklings, bear away the honors due

My manes; loose your thankless ships, and sail

Across my seas. By no slight offering

Did ye aforetime stay Achilles' wrath;

And now a greater shall ye pay. Behold,

Polyxena, once pledged to me in life,195

Must by the hand of Pyrrhus to my shade

Be led, and with her blood my tomb bedew."

So spake Achilles and the realms of day

He left for night profound, reseeking Dis;

And as he plunged within the depths of earth,

The yawning chasm closed and left no trace.

The sea lies tranquil, motionless; the wind

Its boisterous threats abates, and where but now200

The storm-tossed waters raged in angry mood,

The gentle waves lap harmless on the shore;

While from afar the band of Tritons sounds

The marriage chorus of their kindred lord.

[Exit.]

[EnterPyrrhusandAgamemnon.]

Pyrrhus:Now that you homeward fare, and on the seaYour joyful sails would spread, my noble sireIs quite forgot, though by his single handWas mighty Troy o'erthrown; for, though his death205Some respite granted to the stricken town,She stood but as some sorely smitten tree,That sways uncertain, choosing where to fall.Though even now ye seek to make amendsFor your neglect, and haste to grant the thingHe asks, 'tis but a tardy recompense.Long since, the other chieftains of the GreeksHave gained their just reward. What lesser prizeShould his great valor claim? Or is it naught210That, though his mother bade him shun the war,And spend his life in long, inglorious ease,Surpassing even Pylian Nestor's years,He cast his mother's shamming garments off,Confessing him the hero that he was?When Telephus, in pride of royal power,215Forbade our progress through his kingdom's bounds,He stained with royal blood the untried handThat young Achilles raised. Yet once againHe felt that selfsame hand in mercy laidUpon his wound to heal him of its smart.Then did Eëtion, smitten sore, beholdHis city taken and his realm o'erthrown;By equal fortune fell Lyrnessus' walls,220For safety perched upon a ridgy height,Whence came that captive maid, Briseïs fair;And Chrysa, too, lies low, the destined causeOf royal strife; and Tenedos, and the landWhich on its spreading pastures feeds the flocks225Of Thracian shepherds, Scyros; Lesbos too,Upon whose rocky shore the sea in twainIs cleft; and Cilla, which Apollo loved.All these my father took, and eke the townsWhose walls Caÿcus with his vernal floodDoth wash against. This widespread overthrowOf tribes, this fearful and destructive scourge,That swept through many towns with whirlwind power—230This had been glory and the height of fameFor other chiefs; 'twas but an incidentIn great Achilles' journey to the war.So came my father and such wars he wagedWhile but preparing war. And though I passIn silence all his other merits, stillWould mighty Hector's death be praise enough.235My father conquered Troy; the lesser taskOf pillage and destruction is your own.'Tis pleasant thus to laud my noble sireAnd all his glorious deeds pass in review:Before his father's eyes did Hector lie,Of life despoiled; and Memnon, swarthy sonOf bright Aurora, goddess of the dawn,For whose untimely death his mother's faceWas sicklied o'er with grief, while day was veiled240In darkness. When the heaven-born Memnon fell,Achilles trembled at his victory;For in that fall he learned the bitter truthThat even sons of goddesses may die.Then, 'mongst our latest foes, the Amazons,Fierce maidens, felt my father's deadly power.So, if thou rightly estimate his deeds,Thou ow'st Achilles all that he can ask,E'en though he seek from Argos or Mycenae245Some high-born maid. And dost thou hesitateAnd haggle now, inventing scruples new,And deem it barbarous to sacrificeThis captive maid of Troy to Peleus' son?But yet for Helen's sake didst thou devoteThy daughter to the sacrificial knife.I make in this no new or strange request,But only urge a customary rite.Agamemnon:'Tis the common fault of youth to have no check250On passion's force; while others feel aloneThe sweeping rush of this first fire of youth,His father's spirit urges Pyrrhus on.I once endured unmoved the blustering threatsOf proud Achilles, swoll'n with power; and now,My patience is sufficient still to bearHis son's abuse. Why do you seek to smirch255With cruel murder the illustrious shadeOf that famed chief? 'Tis fitting first to learnWithin what bounds the victor may command,The vanquished suffer. Never has for longUnbridled power been able to endure,But lasting sway the self-controlled enjoy.The higher fortune raises human hopes,260The more should fortune's favorite controlHis vaulting pride, and tremble as he viewsThe changing fates of life, and fear the godsWho have uplifted him above his mates.By my own course of conquest have I learnedThat mighty kings can straightway come to naught.Should Troy o'erthrown exalt us overmuch?Behold, we stand today whence she has fallen.265I own that in the past too haughtilyHave I my sway o'er fallen chieftains borne;But thought of fortune's gift has checked my pride,Since she unto another might have givenThese selfsame gifts. O fallen king of Troy,Thou mak'st me proud of conquest over thee,Thou mak'st me fear that I may share thy fate.270Why should I count the scepter anythingBut empty honor and a tinsel show?This scepter one short hour can take away,Without the aid, perchance, of countless shipsAnd ten long years of war. The steps of fateDo not for all advance with pace so slow.275For me, I will confess ('tis with thy grace,O land of Greece, I speak) I have desiredTo see the pride and power of Troy brought low;But that her walls and homes should be o'erthrownIn utter ruin have I never wished.But a wrathful foe, by greedy passion driven,And heated by the glow of victory,Within the shrouding darkness of the night,280Cannot be held in check. If any actUpon that fatal night unworthy seemedOr cruel, 'twas the deed of heedless wrath,And darkness which is ever fury's spur,And the victorious sword, whose lust for blood,When once in blood imbued, is limitless.Since Troy has lost her all, seek not to grasp285The last poor fragments that remain. Enough,And more has she endured of punishment.But that a maid of royal birth should fallAn offering upon Achilles' tomb,Bedewing his harsh ashes with her blood,While that foul murder gains the honored nameOf wedlock, I shall not permit. On meThe blame of all will come; for he who sin290Forbids not when he can, commits the sin.Pyrrhus:Shall no reward Achilles' shade obtain?Agamemnon:Yea, truly; all the Greeks shall sing his praise,And unknown lands shall hear his mighty name.But if his shade demand a sacrifice295Of out-poured blood, go take our richest flocks,And shed their blood upon thy father's tomb;But let no mother's tears pollute the rite.What barbarous custom this, that living manShould to the dead be slain in sacrifice?Then spare thy father's name the hate and scornWhich by such cruel worship it must gain.300Pyrrhus:Thou, swoll'n with pride so long as happy fateUplifts thy soul, but weak and spent with fearWhen fortune frowns; O hateful king of kings,Is now thy heart once more with sudden loveOf this new maid inflamed? Shalt thou aloneSo often bear away my father's spoils?305By this right hand he shall receive his own.And if thou dost refuse, and keep the maid,A greater victim will I slay, and oneMore worthy Pyrrhus' gift; for all too longFrom royal slaughter hath my hand been free,And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.310Agamemnon:Far be it from my wish to dim the praiseThat thou dost claim for this most glorious deed—Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,Thy father's suppliant.Pyrrhus:I know full wellMy father's suppliants—and well I knowHis enemies. Yet royal Priam came,And made his plea before my father's face;315But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enoughThyself to make request, within thy tentDidst trembling hide, and thy desires consignTo braver men, that they might plead for thee.Agamemnon:But, of a truth, no fear thy father felt;But while our Greece lay bleeding, and her shipsWith hostile fire were threatened, there he laySupine and thoughtless of his warlike arms,320And idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.Pyrrhus:Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms,Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre,That our Thessalian ships were left in peace.Agamemnon:An equal peace did Hector's father findWhen he betook him to Achilles' ships.325Pyrrhus:'Tis regal thus to spare a kingly life.Agamemnon:Why then didst thou a kingly life despoil?Pyrrhus:But mercy oft doth offer death for life.Agamemnon:Doth mercy now demand a maiden's blood?330Pyrrhus:Canstthouproclaim such sacrifice a sin?Agamemnon:A king must love his country more than child.Pyrrhus:No law the wretched captive's life doth spare.Agamemnon:What law forbids not, this let shame forbid.Pyrrhus:'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he will.335Agamemnon:Then should he will the least who most can do.Pyrrhus:Dost thou boast thus, from whose tyrannic reignOf ten long years but now the Greeks I freed?Agamemnon:Such airs from Scyros!Pyrrhus:Thence no brother's blood.Agamemnon:Hemmed by the sea!Pyrrhus:Yet that same sea is ours.340But as for Pelops' house, I know it well.Agamemnon:Thou base-born son of maiden's secret sin,And young Achilles, scarce of man's estate—Pyrrhus:Yea, that Achilles who, by right of birth,Claims equal sovereignty of triple realms:345His mother rules the sea, to AeacusThe shades submit, to mighty Jove the heavens.Agamemnon:Yet that Achilles lies by Paris slain!Pyrrhus:But by Apollo's aid, who aimed the dart;For no god dared to meet him face to face.Agamemnon:I could have checked thy words, and curbed thy tongue,Too bold in evil speech; but this my sword350Knows how to spare. But rather let them callThe prophet Calchas, who the will of heavenCan tell. If fate demands the maid, I yield.[EnterCalchas.]Thou who from bonds didst loose the Grecian ships,And bring to end the slow delays of war;Who by thy mystic art canst open heaven,And read with vision clear the awful truthsWhich sacrificial viscera proclaim;To whom the thunder's roll, the long, bright trail355Of stars that flash across the sky, revealThe hidden things of fate; whose every wordIs uttered at a heavy cost to me:What is the will of heaven, O Calchas; speak,And rule us with the mastery of fate.Calchas:The Greeks must pay th' accustomed price to death,360Ere on the homeward seas they take their way.The maiden must be slaughtered on the tombOf great Achilles. Thus the rite perform:As Grecian maidens are in marriage ledBy other hands unto the bridegroom's home,So Pyrrhus to his father's shade must leadHis promised bride.365But not this cause aloneDelays our ships: a nobler blood than thine,Polyxena, is due unto the fates;For from yon lofty tower must Hector's son,Astyanax, be hurled to certain death.Then shall our vessels hasten to the sea,And fill the waters with their thousand sails.370

Pyrrhus:Now that you homeward fare, and on the sea

Your joyful sails would spread, my noble sire

Is quite forgot, though by his single hand

Was mighty Troy o'erthrown; for, though his death205

Some respite granted to the stricken town,

She stood but as some sorely smitten tree,

That sways uncertain, choosing where to fall.

Though even now ye seek to make amends

For your neglect, and haste to grant the thing

He asks, 'tis but a tardy recompense.

Long since, the other chieftains of the Greeks

Have gained their just reward. What lesser prize

Should his great valor claim? Or is it naught210

That, though his mother bade him shun the war,

And spend his life in long, inglorious ease,

Surpassing even Pylian Nestor's years,

He cast his mother's shamming garments off,

Confessing him the hero that he was?

When Telephus, in pride of royal power,215

Forbade our progress through his kingdom's bounds,

He stained with royal blood the untried hand

That young Achilles raised. Yet once again

He felt that selfsame hand in mercy laid

Upon his wound to heal him of its smart.

Then did Eëtion, smitten sore, behold

His city taken and his realm o'erthrown;

By equal fortune fell Lyrnessus' walls,220

For safety perched upon a ridgy height,

Whence came that captive maid, Briseïs fair;

And Chrysa, too, lies low, the destined cause

Of royal strife; and Tenedos, and the land

Which on its spreading pastures feeds the flocks225

Of Thracian shepherds, Scyros; Lesbos too,

Upon whose rocky shore the sea in twain

Is cleft; and Cilla, which Apollo loved.

All these my father took, and eke the towns

Whose walls Caÿcus with his vernal flood

Doth wash against. This widespread overthrow

Of tribes, this fearful and destructive scourge,

That swept through many towns with whirlwind power—230

This had been glory and the height of fame

For other chiefs; 'twas but an incident

In great Achilles' journey to the war.

So came my father and such wars he waged

While but preparing war. And though I pass

In silence all his other merits, still

Would mighty Hector's death be praise enough.235

My father conquered Troy; the lesser task

Of pillage and destruction is your own.

'Tis pleasant thus to laud my noble sire

And all his glorious deeds pass in review:

Before his father's eyes did Hector lie,

Of life despoiled; and Memnon, swarthy son

Of bright Aurora, goddess of the dawn,

For whose untimely death his mother's face

Was sicklied o'er with grief, while day was veiled240

In darkness. When the heaven-born Memnon fell,

Achilles trembled at his victory;

For in that fall he learned the bitter truth

That even sons of goddesses may die.

Then, 'mongst our latest foes, the Amazons,

Fierce maidens, felt my father's deadly power.

So, if thou rightly estimate his deeds,

Thou ow'st Achilles all that he can ask,

E'en though he seek from Argos or Mycenae245

Some high-born maid. And dost thou hesitate

And haggle now, inventing scruples new,

And deem it barbarous to sacrifice

This captive maid of Troy to Peleus' son?

But yet for Helen's sake didst thou devote

Thy daughter to the sacrificial knife.

I make in this no new or strange request,

But only urge a customary rite.

Agamemnon:'Tis the common fault of youth to have no check250On passion's force; while others feel aloneThe sweeping rush of this first fire of youth,His father's spirit urges Pyrrhus on.I once endured unmoved the blustering threatsOf proud Achilles, swoll'n with power; and now,My patience is sufficient still to bearHis son's abuse. Why do you seek to smirch255With cruel murder the illustrious shadeOf that famed chief? 'Tis fitting first to learnWithin what bounds the victor may command,The vanquished suffer. Never has for longUnbridled power been able to endure,But lasting sway the self-controlled enjoy.The higher fortune raises human hopes,260The more should fortune's favorite controlHis vaulting pride, and tremble as he viewsThe changing fates of life, and fear the godsWho have uplifted him above his mates.By my own course of conquest have I learnedThat mighty kings can straightway come to naught.Should Troy o'erthrown exalt us overmuch?Behold, we stand today whence she has fallen.265I own that in the past too haughtilyHave I my sway o'er fallen chieftains borne;But thought of fortune's gift has checked my pride,Since she unto another might have givenThese selfsame gifts. O fallen king of Troy,Thou mak'st me proud of conquest over thee,Thou mak'st me fear that I may share thy fate.270Why should I count the scepter anythingBut empty honor and a tinsel show?This scepter one short hour can take away,Without the aid, perchance, of countless shipsAnd ten long years of war. The steps of fateDo not for all advance with pace so slow.275For me, I will confess ('tis with thy grace,O land of Greece, I speak) I have desiredTo see the pride and power of Troy brought low;But that her walls and homes should be o'erthrownIn utter ruin have I never wished.But a wrathful foe, by greedy passion driven,And heated by the glow of victory,Within the shrouding darkness of the night,280Cannot be held in check. If any actUpon that fatal night unworthy seemedOr cruel, 'twas the deed of heedless wrath,And darkness which is ever fury's spur,And the victorious sword, whose lust for blood,When once in blood imbued, is limitless.Since Troy has lost her all, seek not to grasp285The last poor fragments that remain. Enough,And more has she endured of punishment.But that a maid of royal birth should fallAn offering upon Achilles' tomb,Bedewing his harsh ashes with her blood,While that foul murder gains the honored nameOf wedlock, I shall not permit. On meThe blame of all will come; for he who sin290Forbids not when he can, commits the sin.

Agamemnon:'Tis the common fault of youth to have no check250

On passion's force; while others feel alone

The sweeping rush of this first fire of youth,

His father's spirit urges Pyrrhus on.

I once endured unmoved the blustering threats

Of proud Achilles, swoll'n with power; and now,

My patience is sufficient still to bear

His son's abuse. Why do you seek to smirch255

With cruel murder the illustrious shade

Of that famed chief? 'Tis fitting first to learn

Within what bounds the victor may command,

The vanquished suffer. Never has for long

Unbridled power been able to endure,

But lasting sway the self-controlled enjoy.

The higher fortune raises human hopes,260

The more should fortune's favorite control

His vaulting pride, and tremble as he views

The changing fates of life, and fear the gods

Who have uplifted him above his mates.

By my own course of conquest have I learned

That mighty kings can straightway come to naught.

Should Troy o'erthrown exalt us overmuch?

Behold, we stand today whence she has fallen.265

I own that in the past too haughtily

Have I my sway o'er fallen chieftains borne;

But thought of fortune's gift has checked my pride,

Since she unto another might have given

These selfsame gifts. O fallen king of Troy,

Thou mak'st me proud of conquest over thee,

Thou mak'st me fear that I may share thy fate.270

Why should I count the scepter anything

But empty honor and a tinsel show?

This scepter one short hour can take away,

Without the aid, perchance, of countless ships

And ten long years of war. The steps of fate

Do not for all advance with pace so slow.275

For me, I will confess ('tis with thy grace,

O land of Greece, I speak) I have desired

To see the pride and power of Troy brought low;

But that her walls and homes should be o'erthrown

In utter ruin have I never wished.

But a wrathful foe, by greedy passion driven,

And heated by the glow of victory,

Within the shrouding darkness of the night,280

Cannot be held in check. If any act

Upon that fatal night unworthy seemed

Or cruel, 'twas the deed of heedless wrath,

And darkness which is ever fury's spur,

And the victorious sword, whose lust for blood,

When once in blood imbued, is limitless.

Since Troy has lost her all, seek not to grasp285

The last poor fragments that remain. Enough,

And more has she endured of punishment.

But that a maid of royal birth should fall

An offering upon Achilles' tomb,

Bedewing his harsh ashes with her blood,

While that foul murder gains the honored name

Of wedlock, I shall not permit. On me

The blame of all will come; for he who sin290

Forbids not when he can, commits the sin.

Pyrrhus:Shall no reward Achilles' shade obtain?

Agamemnon:Yea, truly; all the Greeks shall sing his praise,And unknown lands shall hear his mighty name.But if his shade demand a sacrifice295Of out-poured blood, go take our richest flocks,And shed their blood upon thy father's tomb;But let no mother's tears pollute the rite.What barbarous custom this, that living manShould to the dead be slain in sacrifice?Then spare thy father's name the hate and scornWhich by such cruel worship it must gain.300

Agamemnon:Yea, truly; all the Greeks shall sing his praise,

And unknown lands shall hear his mighty name.

But if his shade demand a sacrifice295

Of out-poured blood, go take our richest flocks,

And shed their blood upon thy father's tomb;

But let no mother's tears pollute the rite.

What barbarous custom this, that living man

Should to the dead be slain in sacrifice?

Then spare thy father's name the hate and scorn

Which by such cruel worship it must gain.300

Pyrrhus:Thou, swoll'n with pride so long as happy fateUplifts thy soul, but weak and spent with fearWhen fortune frowns; O hateful king of kings,Is now thy heart once more with sudden loveOf this new maid inflamed? Shalt thou aloneSo often bear away my father's spoils?305By this right hand he shall receive his own.And if thou dost refuse, and keep the maid,A greater victim will I slay, and oneMore worthy Pyrrhus' gift; for all too longFrom royal slaughter hath my hand been free,And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.310

Pyrrhus:Thou, swoll'n with pride so long as happy fate

Uplifts thy soul, but weak and spent with fear

When fortune frowns; O hateful king of kings,

Is now thy heart once more with sudden love

Of this new maid inflamed? Shalt thou alone

So often bear away my father's spoils?305

By this right hand he shall receive his own.

And if thou dost refuse, and keep the maid,

A greater victim will I slay, and one

More worthy Pyrrhus' gift; for all too long

From royal slaughter hath my hand been free,

And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.310

Agamemnon:Far be it from my wish to dim the praiseThat thou dost claim for this most glorious deed—Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,Thy father's suppliant.

Agamemnon:Far be it from my wish to dim the praise

That thou dost claim for this most glorious deed—

Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,

Thy father's suppliant.

Pyrrhus:I know full wellMy father's suppliants—and well I knowHis enemies. Yet royal Priam came,And made his plea before my father's face;315But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enoughThyself to make request, within thy tentDidst trembling hide, and thy desires consignTo braver men, that they might plead for thee.

Pyrrhus:I know full well

My father's suppliants—and well I know

His enemies. Yet royal Priam came,

And made his plea before my father's face;315

But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enough

Thyself to make request, within thy tent

Didst trembling hide, and thy desires consign

To braver men, that they might plead for thee.

Agamemnon:But, of a truth, no fear thy father felt;But while our Greece lay bleeding, and her shipsWith hostile fire were threatened, there he laySupine and thoughtless of his warlike arms,320And idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.

Agamemnon:But, of a truth, no fear thy father felt;

But while our Greece lay bleeding, and her ships

With hostile fire were threatened, there he lay

Supine and thoughtless of his warlike arms,320

And idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.

Pyrrhus:Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms,Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre,That our Thessalian ships were left in peace.

Pyrrhus:Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms,

Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre,

That our Thessalian ships were left in peace.

Agamemnon:An equal peace did Hector's father findWhen he betook him to Achilles' ships.325

Agamemnon:An equal peace did Hector's father find

When he betook him to Achilles' ships.325

Pyrrhus:'Tis regal thus to spare a kingly life.

Agamemnon:Why then didst thou a kingly life despoil?

Pyrrhus:But mercy oft doth offer death for life.

Agamemnon:Doth mercy now demand a maiden's blood?330

Pyrrhus:Canstthouproclaim such sacrifice a sin?

Agamemnon:A king must love his country more than child.

Pyrrhus:No law the wretched captive's life doth spare.

Agamemnon:What law forbids not, this let shame forbid.

Pyrrhus:'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he will.335

Agamemnon:Then should he will the least who most can do.

Pyrrhus:Dost thou boast thus, from whose tyrannic reignOf ten long years but now the Greeks I freed?

Pyrrhus:Dost thou boast thus, from whose tyrannic reign

Of ten long years but now the Greeks I freed?

Agamemnon:Such airs from Scyros!

Pyrrhus:Thence no brother's blood.

Agamemnon:Hemmed by the sea!

Pyrrhus:Yet that same sea is ours.340But as for Pelops' house, I know it well.

Pyrrhus:Yet that same sea is ours.340

But as for Pelops' house, I know it well.

Agamemnon:Thou base-born son of maiden's secret sin,And young Achilles, scarce of man's estate—

Agamemnon:Thou base-born son of maiden's secret sin,

And young Achilles, scarce of man's estate—

Pyrrhus:Yea, that Achilles who, by right of birth,Claims equal sovereignty of triple realms:345His mother rules the sea, to AeacusThe shades submit, to mighty Jove the heavens.

Pyrrhus:Yea, that Achilles who, by right of birth,

Claims equal sovereignty of triple realms:345

His mother rules the sea, to Aeacus

The shades submit, to mighty Jove the heavens.

Agamemnon:Yet that Achilles lies by Paris slain!

Pyrrhus:But by Apollo's aid, who aimed the dart;For no god dared to meet him face to face.

Pyrrhus:But by Apollo's aid, who aimed the dart;

For no god dared to meet him face to face.

Agamemnon:I could have checked thy words, and curbed thy tongue,Too bold in evil speech; but this my sword350Knows how to spare. But rather let them callThe prophet Calchas, who the will of heavenCan tell. If fate demands the maid, I yield.[EnterCalchas.]Thou who from bonds didst loose the Grecian ships,And bring to end the slow delays of war;Who by thy mystic art canst open heaven,And read with vision clear the awful truthsWhich sacrificial viscera proclaim;To whom the thunder's roll, the long, bright trail355Of stars that flash across the sky, revealThe hidden things of fate; whose every wordIs uttered at a heavy cost to me:What is the will of heaven, O Calchas; speak,And rule us with the mastery of fate.

Agamemnon:I could have checked thy words, and curbed thy tongue,

Too bold in evil speech; but this my sword350

Knows how to spare. But rather let them call

The prophet Calchas, who the will of heaven

Can tell. If fate demands the maid, I yield.

[EnterCalchas.]

Thou who from bonds didst loose the Grecian ships,

And bring to end the slow delays of war;

Who by thy mystic art canst open heaven,

And read with vision clear the awful truths

Which sacrificial viscera proclaim;

To whom the thunder's roll, the long, bright trail355

Of stars that flash across the sky, reveal

The hidden things of fate; whose every word

Is uttered at a heavy cost to me:

What is the will of heaven, O Calchas; speak,

And rule us with the mastery of fate.

Calchas:The Greeks must pay th' accustomed price to death,360Ere on the homeward seas they take their way.The maiden must be slaughtered on the tombOf great Achilles. Thus the rite perform:As Grecian maidens are in marriage ledBy other hands unto the bridegroom's home,So Pyrrhus to his father's shade must leadHis promised bride.365But not this cause aloneDelays our ships: a nobler blood than thine,Polyxena, is due unto the fates;For from yon lofty tower must Hector's son,Astyanax, be hurled to certain death.Then shall our vessels hasten to the sea,And fill the waters with their thousand sails.370

Calchas:The Greeks must pay th' accustomed price to death,360

Ere on the homeward seas they take their way.

The maiden must be slaughtered on the tomb

Of great Achilles. Thus the rite perform:

As Grecian maidens are in marriage led

By other hands unto the bridegroom's home,

So Pyrrhus to his father's shade must lead

His promised bride.365

But not this cause alone

Delays our ships: a nobler blood than thine,

Polyxena, is due unto the fates;

For from yon lofty tower must Hector's son,

Astyanax, be hurled to certain death.

Then shall our vessels hasten to the sea,

And fill the waters with their thousand sails.370

[Exeunt.]

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