[_A new thought comes to_ HECUBA; _she kneels and beats the earth with her hands_.

HECUBA.

[_Strophe_.

O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O mine own, Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness lying!

LEADER.

Now hast thou found thy prayer[48], crying to them that are gone.

HECUBA.

Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your head; Hearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!

LEADER.

I, I am near thee; I kneel to thy dead to hear thee, Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear my crying!

HECUBA.

Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they bear,

LEADER.

(Pain; O pain!)

HECUBA.

We go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O hear!

LEADER.

(Go, and come not again!)

HECUBA.

Priam, mine own Priam, Lying so lowly, Thou in thy nothingness, Shelterless, comfortless, See'st thou the thing I am?

Know'st thou my bitter stress?

LEADER.

Nay, thou art naught to him!

Out of the strife there came, Out of the noise and shame, Making his eyelids dim, Death, the Most Holy!

[_The fire and smoke rise constantly higher_.

HECUBA.

[_Antistrophe_.

O high houses of G.o.ds, beloved streets of my birth, Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and blood-red river!

LEADER.

Fall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the gentle earth.

HECUBA.

The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing; It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished thing!

LEADER.

Out on the smoke she goeth, And her name no man knoweth; And the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone for ever!

[_A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in smoke and darkness_.

HECUBA.

Ha! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the towers that fall!

LEADER.

All is gone!

HECUBA.

Wrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that sweepeth all,

LEADER.

And pa.s.seth on!

[_The Greek trumpet sounds_.

HECUBA.

Farewell!--O spirit grey, Whatso is coming, Fail not from under me.

Weak limbs, why tremble ye?

Forth where the new long day Dawneth to slavery!

CHORUS.

Farewell from parting lips, Farewell!--Come, I and thou, Whatso may wait us now, Forth to the long Greek ships[49]

And the sea's foaming.

[_The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go out in the darkness._

NOTES ON THE TROJAN WOMEN