Parodos

(The day slowly dawns: HECUBA wakes.)

HECUBA.Up from the earth, O weary head!This is not Troy, about, above--Not Troy, nor we the lords thereof.Thou breaking neck, be strengthened!

Endure and chafe not. The winds raveAnd falter. Down the world's wide road,Float, float where streams the breath of God;Nor turn thy prow to breast the wave.

Ah woe! . . . For what woe lacketh here?My children lost, my land, my lord.O thou great wealth of glory, storedOf old in Ilion, year by year

We watched . . . and wert thou nothingness?What is there that I fear to say?And yet, what help? . . . Ah, well-a-day,This ache of lying, comfortless

And haunted! Ah, my side, my browAnd temples! All with changeful painMy body rocketh, and would fainMove to the tune of tears that flow:For tears are music too, and keepA song unheard in hearts that weep.

(She rises and gazes towards the Greek ships far off on the shore.)

O ships, O crowding facesOf ships, O hurrying beatOf oars as of crawling feet,How found ye our holy places?Threading the narrows through,Out from the gulfs of the Greek,Out to the clear dark blue,With hate ye came and with joy,And the noise of your music flew,Clarion and pipe did shriek,As the coiled cords ye threw,Held in the heart of Troy!

What sought ye then that ye came?A woman, a thing abhorred:A King's wife that her lordHateth: and Castor's shameIs hot for her sake, and the reedsOf old Eurotas stirWith the noise of the name of her.She slew mine ancient King,The Sower of fifty Seeds,And cast forth mine and me,As shipwrecked men, that clingTo a reef in an empty sea.

Who am I that I sitHere at a Greek king's door,Yea, in the dust of it?A slave that men drive before,A woman that hath no home,Weeping alone for her dead;A low and bruised head,And the glory struck therefrom.

(She starts up from her solitary brooding, and calls to the other Trojan Women in the huts.)

O Mothers of the Brazen Spear,And maidens, maidens, brides of shame,Troy is a smoke, a dying flame;Together we will weep for her:I call ye as a wide-wing'd birdCalleth the children of her fold,To cry, ah, not the cry men heardIn Ilion, not the songs of old,That echoed when my hand was trueOn Priam's sceptre, and my feetTouched on the stone one signal beat,And out the Dardan music rolled;And Troy's great Gods gave ear thereto.

(The door of one of the huts on the right opens, and the Women steal out severally, startled and afraid.)

FIRST WOMAN.How say'st thou? Whither moves thy cry,Thy bitter cry? Behind our doorWe heard thy heavy heart outpourIts sorrow: and there shivered byFear and a quick sob shakenFrom prisoned hearts that shall be free no more!

HECUBA.Child, 'tis the ships that stir upon the shore . . .

SECOND WOMAN.The ships, the ships awaken!

THIRD WOMAN.Dear God, what would they? OverseasBear me afar to strange cities?

HECUBA.Nay, child, I know not. Dreams are these,Fears of the hope-forsaken.

FIRST WOMAN.Awake, O daughters of affliction, wakeAnd learn your lots! Even now the Argives breakTheir camp for sailing!

HECUBA.Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not herWhom God hath maddened, lest the foeMock at her dreaming. Leave me clearFrom that one edge of woe.O Troy, my Troy, thou diest hereMost lonely; and most lonely weThe living wander forth from thee,And the dead leave thee wailing!

(One of the huts on the left is now open, and the rest of the CHORUS come out severally. Their number eventually amounts to fifteen.)

FOURTH WOMAN.Out of the tent of the Greek kingI steal, my Queen, with trembling breath:What means thy call? Not death; not death!They would not slay so low a thing!

FIFTH WOMAN.O, 'tis the ship-folk cryingTo deck the galleys: and we part, we part!

HECUBA.Nay, daughter: take the morning to thine heart.

FIFTH WOMAN.My heart with dread is dying!

SIXTH WOMAN.An herald from the Greek hath come!

FIFTH WOMAN.How have they cast me, and to whomA bondmaid?

HECUBA. Peace, child: wait thy doom.Our lots are near the trying.

FOURTH WOMAN.Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,Or some lone island of the tossing sea,Far, far from Troy?

HECUBA.And I the aged, where go I,A winter-frozen bee, a slaveDeath-shapen, as the stones that lieHewn on a dead man's grave:The children of mine enemyTo foster, or keep watch beforeThe threshold of a master's door,I that was Queen in Troy!

A WOMAN TO ANOTHER.And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?

THE OTHER.The shuttle still shall flit and changeBeneath my fingers, but the loom,Sister, be strange.

ANOTHER (wildly).Look, my dead child! My child, my love,The last look. . . .

ANOTHER. Oh, there cometh worse.A Greek's bed in the dark. . . .

ANOTHER. God curseThat night and all the powers thereof!

ANOTHER.Or pitchers to and fro to bearTo some Pirene on the hill,Where the proud water craveth stillIts broken-hearted minister.

ANOTHER.God guide me yet to Theseus' land,The gentle land, the famed afar . . .

ANOTHER.But not the hungry foam--Ah, never!--Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river,To bow to Menelaus' hand,That wasted Troy with war!

A WOMAN.They told us of a land high-born,Where glimmers round Olympus' rootsA lordly river, red with cornAnd burdened fruits.

ANOTHER.Aye, that were next in my desireTo Athens, where good spirits dwell . . .

ANOTHER.Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fireThat front the Tyrian's Citadel:First mother, she, of SicilyAnd mighty mountains: fame hath toldTheir crowns of goodness manifold. . . .

ANOTHER.And, close beyond the narrowing sea,A sister land, where float enchantedIonian summits, wave on wave,And Crathis of the burning tressesMakes red the happy vale, and blessesWith gold of fountains spirit-hauntedHomes of true men and brave!