O, it was well for Hellas! But for me
Most ill; caught up and sold across the sea
For this my beauty; yea, dishonourèd
For that which else had been about my head
A crown of honour…. Ah, I see thy thought;
The first plain deed, ’tis that I answer not,
How in the dark out of thy house I fled….
There came the Seed of Fire, this woman’s seed;
Came — O, a Goddess great walked with him then —
This Alexander, Breaker-down-of-Men,
This Paris, Strength-is-with-him; whom thou,
whom —
O false and light of heart — thou in thy room
Didst leave, and spreadest sail for Cretan seas,
Far, far from me!… And yet, how strange it is!
I ask not thee; I ask my own sad thought,
What was there in my heart, that I forgot
My home and land and all I loved, to fly
With a strange man? Surely it was not I,
But Cypris, there! Lay thou thy rod on her,
And be more high than Zeus and bitterer,
Who o’er all other spirits hath his throne,
But knows her chain must bind him. My wrong done
Hath its own pardon….
One word yet thou hast,
Methinks, of righteous seeming. When at last
The earth for Paris oped and all was o’er,
And her strange magic bound my feet no more,
Why kept I still his house, why fled not I
To the Argive ships?… Ah, how I strove to fly!
The old Gate-Warden could have told thee all,
My husband, and the watchers from the wall;
It was not once they took me, with the rope
Tied, and this body swung in the air, to grope
Its way toward thee, from that dim battlement.
Ah, husband still, how shall thy hand be bent
To slay me? Nay, if Right be come at last,
What shalt thou bring but comfort for pains past,
And harbour for a woman storm-driven:
A woman borne away by violent men:
And this one birthright of my beauty, this
That might have been my glory, lo, it is
A stamp that God hath burned, of slavery!
Alas! and if thou cravest still to be
As one set above gods, inviolate,
’Tis but a fruitless longing holds thee yet.
LEADER.
O Queen, think of thy children and thy land,
And break her spell! The sweet soft speech, the
hand
And heart so fell: it maketh me afraid.
HECUBA.
Meseems her goddesses first cry mine aid
Against these lying lips!… Not Hera, nay,
Nor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay,
To barter their own folk, Argos and brave
Athens, to be trod down, the Phrygian’s slave,
All for vain glory and a shepherd’s prize
On Ida! Wherefore should great Hera’s eyes
So hunger to be fair? She doth not use
To seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus.
And maiden Pallas … did some strange god’s face
Beguile her, that she craved for loveliness,
Who chose from God one virgin gift above
All gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love?
Ah, deck not out thine own heart’s evil springs
By making spirits of heaven as brutish things
And cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all!
And Cypris must take ship-fantastical!
Sail with my son and enter at the gate
To seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sate
At peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and all
Amyclae with thee, under Ilion’s wall.
My son was passing beautiful, beyond
His peers; and thine own heart, that saw and conned
His face, became a spirit enchanting thee.
For all wild things that in mortality
Have being, are Aphroditê; and the name
She bears in heaven is born and writ of them.
Thou sawest him in gold and orient vest
Shining, and lo, a fire about thy breast
Leapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things,
Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings
Were come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled
The Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold,
To steep thine arms and splash the towers! How
small,
How cold that day was Menelaus’ hall!
Enough of that. It was by force my son
Took thee, thou sayst, and striving…. Yet not one
In Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer
Rang from thy rooms that night…. Castor was there
To hear thee, and his brother: both true men,
Not yet among the stars! And after, when
Thou camest here to Troy, and in thy track
Argos and all its anguish and the rack
Of war — Ah God! — perchance men told thee ‘Now
The Greek prevails in battle’: then wouldst thou
Praise Menelaus, that my son might smart,
Striving with that old image in a heart
Uncertain still. Then Troy had victories:
And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes
Watched Fortune’s eyes, to follow hot where she
Led first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty.
Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall
Far, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall!
Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay,
Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way
Of the sword, that any woman honest-souled
Had sought long since, loving her lord of old?
Often and often did I charge thee; ‘Go,
My daughter; go thy ways. My sons will know
New loves. I will give aid, and steal thee past
The Argive watch. O give us peace at last,
Us and our foes!’ But out thy spirit cried
As at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy pride
In Alexander’s house, and O, ’twas sweet
To hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet.
They were great things to thee!… And comest thou
now
Forth, and hast decked thy bosom and thy brow,
And breathest with thy lord the same blue air,
Thou evil heart? Low, low, with ravaged hair,
Rent raiment, and flesh shuddering, and within —
O shame at last, not glory for thy sin;
So face him if thou canst!… Lo, I have done.
Be true, O King; let Hellas bear her crown
Of Justice. Slay this woman, and upraise
The law for evermore: she that betrays
Her husband’s bed, let her be judged and die.
LEADER.
Be strong, O King; give judgment worthily
For thee and thy great house. Shake off thy long
Reproach; not weak, but iron against the wrong!
MENELAUS.
Thy thought doth walk with mine in one intent.
’Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she went
Forth to a stranger’s bed. And all her fair
Tale of enchantment, ’tis a thing of air!…
[Turning furiously upon HELEN.
Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yet
With stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt
Be paid at last. And ere this night is o’er
Thy dead face shall dishonour me no more!
HELEN (kneeling before him and embracing him).
Behold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees;
Lay not upon my head the phantasies
Of Hea
ven. Remember all, and slay me not!
HECUBA.
Remember them she murdered, them that fought
Beside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!
MENELAUS.
Peace, agèd woman, peace! ’Tis not for her;
She is as naught to me.
(To the Soldiers) … March on before,
Ye ministers, and tend her to the shore …
And have some chambered galley set for her,
Where she may sail the seas.
HECUBA.
If thou be there,
I charge thee, let not her set foot therein!
MENELAUS.
How? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?
HECUBA.
A lover once, will alway love again.
MENELAUS.
If that he loved be evil, he will fain
Hate it!… Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done.
Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own….
Thou counsellest very well…. And when we come
To Argos, then … O then some pitiless doom
Well-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind
Once for all time the law on womankind
Of faithfulness!… ‘Twill be no easy thing,
God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling
A chill on the dreams of women, though they be
Wilder of wing and loathèd more than she!
[Exit, following HELEN, who is escorted by the Soldiers.
* * * * *
CHORUS.
Some Women.
[Strophe I.
And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense,
And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion?
The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence,
The myrrh on the air and the wreathèd towers gone?
And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows,
The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows,
And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows,
The lit house most holy of the Dawn?
EURIPIDES
Others.
[Antistrophe I.
The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy,
The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer:
The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy,
The twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear:
My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high,
Were they all to thee as nothing, thou thronèd in the sky,
Thronèd in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die,
Passeth in the wind and the flare?
A Woman.
[Strophe 2.
Dear one, O husband mine,
Thou in the dim dominions
Driftest with waterless lips,
Unburied; and me the ships
Shall bear o’er the bitter brine,
Storm-birds upon angry pinions,
Where the towers of the Giants shine
O’er Argos cloudily,
And the riders ride by the sea.
Others.
And children still in the Gate
Crowd and cry,
A multitude desolate,
Voices that float and wait
As the tears run dry:
‘Mother, alone on the shore
They drive me, far from thee:
Lo, the dip of the oar,
The black hull on the sea!
Is it the Isle Immortal,
Salamis, waits for me?
Is it the Rock that broods
Over the sundered floods
Of Corinth, the ancient portal
Of Pelops’ sovranty?’
A Woman.
[Antistrophe 2.
Out in the waste of foam,
Where rideth dark Menelaus,
Come to us there, O white
And jagged, with wild sea-light
And crashing of oar-blades, come,
O thunder of God, and slay us:
While our tears are wet for home,
While out in the storm go we,
Slaves of our enemy!
Others.
And, God, may Helen be there,
With mirror of gold,
Decking her face so fair,
Girl-like; and hear, and stare,
And turn death-cold:
Never, ah, never more
The hearth of her home to see,
Nor sand of the Spartan shore,
Nor tombs where her fathers be,
Nor Athena’s bronzen Dwelling,
Nor the towers of Pitanê
For her face was a dark desire
Upon Greece, and shame like fire,
And her dead are welling, welling,
From red Simoïs to the sea!
* * * * *
[TALTHYBIUS, followed by one or two Soldiers and bearing the child
ASTYANAX dead, is seen approaching.
LEADER.
Ah, change on change! Yet each one racks
This land with evil manifold;
Unhappy wives of Troy, behold,
They bear the dead Astyanax,
Our prince, whom bitter Greeks this hour
Have hurled to death from Ilion’s tower.
TALTHYBIUS.
One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet,
Lapping the wave, to gather the last freight
Of Pyrrhus’ spoils for Thessaly. The chief
Himself long since hath parted, much in grief
For Pêleus’ sake, his grandsire, whom, men say,
Acastus, Pelias’ son, in war array
Hath driven to exile. Loath enough before
Was he to linger, and now goes the more
In haste, bearing Andromache, his prize.
’Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes,
Weeping her fatherland, as o’er the wave
Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done
For burial of this babe, thine Hector’s son,
That now from Ilion’s tower is fallen and dead.
And, lo! this great bronze-fronted shield, the dread
Of many a Greek, that Hector held in fray,
O never in God’s name — so did she pray —
Be this borne forth to hang in Pêleus’ hall
Or that dark bridal chamber, that the wall
May hurt her eyes; but here, in Troy o’erthrown,
Instead of cedar wood and vaulted stone,
Be this her child’s last house…. And in thine hands
She bade me lay him, to be swathed in bands
Of death and garments, such as rest to thee
In these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she
Hath gone her ways, and, for her master’s haste,
May no more fold the babe unto his rest.
Howbeit, so soon as he is garlanded
And robed, we will heap earth above his head
And lift our sails…. See all be swiftly done,
As thou art bidden. I have saved thee one
Labour. For as I passed Scamander’s stream
Hard by, I let the waters run on him,
And cleansed his wounds. — See, I will go forth now
And break the hard earth for his grave: so thou
And I will haste together, to set free
Our oars at last to beat the homeward sea!
[He goes out with his Soldiers, leaving the body of the Child in HECUBA’S arms.
HECUBA.
Set the great orb of Hector’s shield to lie
Here on the ground. ’Tis bitter that mine eye
Should see it…. O ye Argives, was your spear
Keen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fear
This babe? ’Twas a strange murder for brave
men!
For fear this babe some day might raise again
&nb
sp; His fallen land! Had ye so little pride?
While Hector fought, and thousands at his side,
Ye smote us, and we perished; and now, now,
When all are dead and Ilion lieth low,
Ye dread this innocent! I deem it not
Wisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought….
Ah, what a death hath found thee, little one!
Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known
Strong youth and love and all the majesty
Of godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee
As of one blessed … could in any wise
These days know blessedness. But now thine eyes
Have seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soul
No knowledge had nor usage of the whole
Rich life that lapt thee round…. Poor little child!
Was it our ancient wall, the circuit piled
By loving Gods, so savagely hath rent
Thy curls, these little flowers innocent
That were thy mother’s garden, where she laid
Her kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayed
Grins white above — Ah heaven, I will not see!
Ye tender arms, the same dear mould have ye
As his; how from the shoulder loose ye drop
And weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hope
And closed for ever! What false words ye said
At daybreak, when he crept into my bed,
Called me kind names, and promised: ‘Grandmother,
When thou art dead, I will cut close my hair
And lead out all the captains to ride by
Thy tomb.’ Why didst thou cheat me so? ’Tis I,
Old, homeless, childless, that for thee must shed
Cold tears, so young, so miserably dead.
Dear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet,
The nursing in my lap; and O, the sweet
Falling asleep together! All is gone.
How should a poet carve the funeral stone
To tell thy story true? ‘There lieth here
A babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fear
Slew him.’ Aye, Greece will bless the tale it
tells!
Child, they have left thee beggared of all else
In Hector’s house; but one thing shalt thou keep,
This war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep.
Alas, thou guardian true of Hector’s fair
Left arm, how art thou masterless! And there
I see his handgrip printed on thy hold;
And deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolled
In battle from the brows and beard of him,
Drop after drop, are writ about thy rim.
Go, bring them — such poor garments hazardous
As these days leave. God hath not granted us
Wherewith to make much pride. But all I can,
I give thee, Child of Troy. — O vain is man,
Who glorieth in his joy and hath no fears:
While to and fro the chances of the years