HEC. Alas!
My child’s untimely miserable fate.
POLYX. Farewell, my mother, and my dear Cassandra.
HEC. To others in that language speak; be theirs
The happiness thy mother cannot taste.
POLYX. And thou, my brother Polydore, who dwell’st
Among the Thracians, famed for generous steeds——
HEC. If yet he live; but this I greatly doubt,
Because I am in all respects so wretched.
POLYX. He lives, and when the hour of death is come,
Will close your eyes.
HEC. I’m prematurely dead
While yet alive, bowed down to earth by woe.
POLYX. Now bear me hence, Ulysses, o’er my face
Casting a veil: for ere I at the altar
Am slain, this heart is melted by the plaints
Of my dear mother, and my tears augment
Her sorrows. O thou radiant light; for still
Am I permitted to invoke thy name,
But can enjoy thee only till I meet
The lifted sword, and reach Achilles’ tomb.
[_Exeunt_ ULYSSES _and_ POLYXENA.
HEC. I faint, my limbs are all unnerved; return,
My daughter, let me touch that hand once more,
Leave me not childless. O, my friends, I perish;
Ah, would to Heaven I could see Spartan Helen,
In the same state, that sister to the sons
Of Jove, for by her beauteous eyes was Troy,
That prosperous city, with disgrace o’erthrown.