Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/195

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THE DAUGHTERS OF TROY.
139

The wasted form that knew a royal bed, 495
With tattered rags to clothe my shrunken frame,
Vesture unmeet for those once throned in bliss.
O wretched I!—for one wife's bridal's sake
What have I borne?—what am I yet to bear?
O child, Kassandra, bacchant-fellow of Gods, 500
Mid what disaster ends thy virgin state!
And thou, my poor Polyxena, where art thou?
Nor son nor daughter, none remains to help
The wretched mother, of all born to her.
Wherefore then raise me up?—by what hopes cheered? 505
Guide me,—who once in Troy trod delicately,
Who am a slave now,—to some earth-strown bed,
Some rocky brow, to weep mine heart away,
And hurl me then to death. Of all that prosper
Account ye no man happy ere he die. 510


Chorus.

(Str. 1)
O Song-goddess, chant in mine ear
The doom of mine Ilium: sing
Thy strange notes broken with sob and tear
That o'er sepulchres sigh where our dear dead lie:
For now through my lips outwailing clear
Troy's ruin-dirge shall ring,—
How the Argives' four-foot wain[1]
Brought me ruin with spear and with chain,
When clashed to the sky that armoury[2]
That they left at our gates for our bane— 520
That gold-decked thing!

  1. ↑ The Wooden Horse.
  2. ↑ Alluding to the clang of arms from within, of which the Trojans in their infatuation took no heed, as they dragged it into the city. Cf. Virgil, Aen. ii, 243.
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