The Trojan women of Euripides by Euripides (booksvooks txt) 📖

was false of old!

O Women of Troy, weep for me!
Yea, I am gone: I am gone my ways.
Mine is the crown of misery,
The bitterest day of all our days.

LEADER.

Thy fate thou knowest, Queen: but I know not
What lord of South or North has won my lot.

TALTHYBIUS.

Go, seek Cassandra, men! Make your best speed,
That I may leave her with the King, and lead
These others to their divers lords…. Ha, there!
What means that sudden light? Is it the flare
Of torches?

[Light is seen shining through the crevices of the second hut on the right. He moves towards it.

     Would they fire their prison rooms,
Or how, these dames of Troy?—'Fore God, the dooms
Are known, and now they burn themselves and die[18]
Rather than sail with us! How savagely
In days like these a free neck chafes beneath
Its burden!… Open! Open quick! Such death
Were bliss to them, it may be: but 'twill bring
Much wrath, and leave me shamed before the King!

HECUBA.

There is no fire, no peril: 'tis my child,
Cassandra, by the breath of God made wild.

[The door opens from within and CASSANDRA enters, white-robed and wreathed like a Priestess, a great torch in her hand. She is singing softly to herself and does not see the Herald or the scene before her.

CASSANDRA.

Lift, lift it high: [Strophe.
  Give it to mine hand!
    Lo, I bear a flame
    Unto God! I praise his name.
  I light with a burning brand
This sanctuary.
Blessèd is he that shall wed,
  And blessèd, blessèd am I
  In Argos: a bride to lie
With a king in a king's bed.

  Hail, O Hymen[19] red,
  O Torch that makest one!
  Weepest thou, Mother mine own?
Surely thy cheek is pale
With tears, tears that wail
  For a land and a father dead.
  But I go garlanded:
I am the Bride of Desire:
  Therefore my torch is borne—
  Lo, the lifting of morn,
Lo, the leaping of fire!—

For thee, O Hymen bright,
  For thee, O Moon of the Deep,
So Law hath charged, for the light
  Of a maid's last sleep.

Awake, O my feet, awake: [Antistrophe.
  Our father's hope is won!
    Dance as the dancing skies
    Over him, where he lies
  Happy beneath the sun!…
Lo, the Ring that I make….

[She makes a circle round her with a torch, and visions appear to her.

Apollo!… Ah, is it thou?
  O shrine in the laurels cold,
  I bear thee still, as of old,
Mine incense! Be near to me now.

[She waves the torch as though bearing incense.

O Hymen, Hymen fleet:
  Quick torch that makest one!…
  How? Am I still alone?
Laugh as I laugh, and twine
In the dance, O Mother mine:
  Dear feet, be near my feet!

Come, greet ye Hymen, greet
  Hymen with songs of pride:
Sing to him loud and long,
Cry, cry, when the song
  Faileth, for joy of the bride!

O Damsels girt in the gold
  Of Ilion, cry, cry ye,
For him that is doomed of old
  To be lord of me!

LEADER.

O hold the damsel, lest her trancèd feet
Lift her afar, Queen, toward the Hellene fleet!

HECUBA.

O Fire, Fire, where men make marriages
Surely thou hast thy lot; but what are these
Thou bringest flashing? Torches savage-wild
And far from mine old dreams.—Alas, my child,
How little dreamed I then of wars or red
Spears of the Greek to lay thy bridal bed!
Give me thy brand; it hath no holy blaze
Thus in thy frenzy flung. Nor all thy days
Nor all thy griefs have changed them yet, nor learned
Wisdom.—Ye women, bear the pine half burned
To the chamber back; and let your drownèd eyes
Answer the music of these bridal cries!

[She takes the torch and gives it to one of the women.

CASSANDRA.

O Mother, fill mine hair with happy flowers,
And speed me forth. Yea, if my spirit cowers,
Drive me with wrath! So liveth Loxias[20],
A bloodier bride than ever Helen was
Go I to Agamemnon, Lord most high
Of Hellas!… I shall kill him, mother; I
Shall kill him, and lay waste his house with fire
As he laid ours. My brethren and my sire
Shall win again….[21]

      (Checking herself) But part I must let be,
And speak not. Not the axe that craveth me,
And more than me; not the dark wanderings
Of mother-murder that my bridal brings,
And all the House of Atreus down, down, down….

  Nay, I will show thee. Even now this town
Is happier than the Greeks. I know the power
Of God is on me: but this little hour,
Wilt thou but listen, I will hold him back!

  One love, one woman's beauty, o'er the track
Of hunted Helen, made their myriads fall.
And this their King so wise[22], who ruleth all,
What wrought he? Cast out Love that Hate might feed:
Gave to his brother his own child, his seed
Of gladness, that a woman fled, and fain
To fly for ever, should be turned again!

So the days waned, and armies on the shore
Of Simois stood and strove and died. Wherefore?
No man had moved their landmarks; none had shook
Their wallèd towns.—And they whom Ares took,
Had never seen their children: no wife came
With gentle arms to shroud the limbs of them
For burial, in a strange and angry earth
Laid dead. And there at home, the same long dearth:
Women that lonely died, and aged men
Waiting for sons that ne'er should turn again,
Nor know their graves, nor pour drink-offerings,
To still the unslakèd dust. These be the things
The conquering Greek hath won!

     But we—what pride,
What praise of men were sweeter?—fighting died
To save our people. And when war was red
Around us, friends upbore the gentle dead
Home, and dear women's heads about them wound
White shrouds, and here they sleep in the old ground
Belovèd. And the rest long days fought on,
Dwelling with wives and children, not alone
And joyless, like these Greeks.

     And Hector's woe,
What is it? He is gone, and all men know
His glory, and how true a heart he bore.
It is the gift the Greek hath brought! Of yore
Men saw him not, nor knew him. Yea, and even
Paris[23] hath loved withal a child of heaven:
Else had his love but been as others are.
  Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!
Yet if war come, there is a crown in death
For her that striveth well and perisheth
Unstained: to die in evil were the stain!
Therefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain,
Nor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foe
And mine by this my wooing is brought low.

TALTHYBIUS (at last breaking through the spell that has held him).

I swear, had not Apollo made thee mad,
Not lightly hadst thou flung this shower of bad
Bodings, to speed my General o'er the seas!
  'Fore God, the wisdoms and the greatnesses
Of seeming, are they hollow all, as things
Of naught? This son of Atreus, of all kings
Most mighty, hath so bowed him to the love
Of this mad maid, and chooseth her above
All women! By the Gods, rude though I be,
I would not touch her hand!

     Look thou; I see
Thy lips are blind, and whatso words they speak,
Praises of Troy or shamings of the Greek,
I cast to the four winds! Walk at my side
In peace!… And heaven content him of his bride!

 [He moves as though to go, but turns to HECUBA, and speaks more
gently.

And thou shalt follow to Odysseus' host
When the word comes. 'Tis a wise queen[24] thou
  go'st
To serve, and gentle: so the Ithacans say.

CASSANDRA (seeing for the first time the Herald and all the scene).

How fierce a slave!… O Heralds, Heralds!
  Yea,
Voices of Death[25]; and mists are over them
Of dead men's anguish, like a diadem,
These weak abhorred things that serve the hate
Of kings and peoples!…

     To Odysseus' gate
My mother goeth, say'st thou? Is God's word
As naught, to me in silence ministered,
That in this place she dies?[26]… (To herself) No
  more; no more!
Why should I speak the shame of them, before
They come?… Little he knows, that hard-beset
Spirit, what deeps of woe await him yet;
Till all these tears of ours and harrowings
Of Troy, by his, shall be as golden things.
Ten years behind ten years athwart his way
Waiting: and home, lost and unfriended….

     Nay:
Why should Odysseus' labours vex my breath?
On; hasten; guide me to the house of Death,
To lie beside my bridegroom!…

     Thou Greek King,
Who deem'st thy fortune now so high a thing,
Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see,
In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee:
And with thee, with thee … there, where yawneth
  plain
A rift of the hills, raging with winter rain,
Dead … and out-cast … and naked…. It is I
Beside my bridegroom: and the wild beasts cry,
And ravin on God's chosen!

[She clasps her hands to her brow and feels the wreaths.

     O, ye wreaths!
Ye garlands of my God, whose love yet breathes
About me, shapes of joyance mystical,
Begone! I have forgot the festival,
Forgot the joy. Begone! I tear ye, so,
From off me!… Out on the swift winds they go.
With flesh still clean I give them back to thee,
Still white, O God, O light that leadest me!

[_Turning upon the Herald.

Where lies the galley? Whither shall I tread?
See that your watch be set, your sail be spread
The wind comes quick[27]! Three Powers—mark me,
  thou!—
There be in Hell, and one walks with thee now!
  Mother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweet
City, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great
Sire that begat us, but a space, ye Dead,
And I am with you, yea, with crowned head
I come, and shining from the fires that feed
On these that slay us now, and all their seed!

[She goes out, followed by Talthybius and the Soldiers Hecuba, after waiting for an instant motionless, falls to the ground.

LEADER OF CHORUS.

The Queen, ye Watchers! See, she falls, she falls,
Rigid without a word! O sorry thralls,
Too late! And will ye leave her downstricken,
A woman, and so old? Raise her again!

[Some women go to HECUBA, but she refuses their aid and speaks without rising.

HECUBA.

Let lie … the love we seek not is no love….
This ruined body! Is the fall thereof
Too deep for all that now is over me
Of anguish, and hath been, and yet shall be?
Ye Gods…. Alas! Why call on things so weak
For aid? Yet there is something that doth seek,
Crying, for God, when one of us hath woe.
O, I will think of things gone long ago
And weave them to a song, like one more tear
In the heart of misery…. All kings we were;
And I must wed a king. And sons I brought
My lord King, many sons … nay, that were naught;
But high strong princes, of all Troy the best.
Hellas nor Troäs nor the garnered East
Held such a mother! And all these things beneath
The Argive spear I saw cast down in death,
And shore these tresses at the dead men's feet.
  Yea, and the gardener of my garden great,
It was not any noise of him nor tale
I wept for; these eyes saw him, when the pale
Was broke, and there at the altar Priam fell
Murdered, and round him all his citadel
Sacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold,
Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold,
'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone;
And no hope left, that I shall look upon
Their faces any more, nor they on mine.
  And now my feet tread on the utmost line:
An old, old slave-woman, I pass below
Mine enemies' gates; and whatso task they know
For this age basest, shall be mine; the door,
Bowing, to shut and open…. I that bore
Hector!… and meal to grind, and this racked head
Bend to the stones after a royal bed;
Tom rags about me, aye, and under them
Tom flesh; 'twill make a woman sick for shame!
Woe's me; and all that one man's arms might hold
One woman, what long seas have o'er me rolled
And roll for ever!… O my child, whose white
Soul laughed amid the laughter of God's light,
Cassandra, what hands and how strange a day
Have loosed thy zone! And thou, Polyxena,
Where art thou? And my sons? Not any seed
Of man nor woman now shall help my need.
  Why raise me any more? What hope have I
To hold me? Take this slave that once trod high
In Ilion; cast her on her bed of clay
Rock-pillowed, to lie down, and pass away
Wasted with tears. And whatso man they call
Happy, believe not ere the last day fall!

* * * * *

CHORUS[28].