ATT. O most unfortunate, whose woes exceed
All that the power of language can express,
My queen, you perish, doomed no more to view
The blessed light; of children, husband, city,
Bereft and ruined.
HEC. Nothing hast thou told
But what I knew, thou only com’st t’ insult me:
Yet wherefore dost thou bring to me this corse
Of my Polyxena, o’er whom ’twas said
The Grecian host with pious zeal all vied
To heap a tomb?
ATT. She knows not, but laments
For the deceased Polyxena alone,
And to her recent woes is yet a stranger.
HEC. Ah, bring’st thou the inspired prophetic head,
And the dishevelled tresses of Cassandra?
ATT. You speak of one yet living, but bewail not
This the deceased: survey the naked corse
Of him whose death to you will seem most strange
And most unlocked for.
HEC. Ha, I see my son,
My dearest Polydore, whom he of Thrace
Beneath his roof protected. I am ruined;
Now utterly I perish. O my son,
For thee, for thee I wake the frantic dirge,
By that malignant demon which assumed
Thy voice, thy semblance, recently apprized
Of this calamity.
ATT. O wretched mother,
Know you then what was your son’s fate?
HEC. A sight
Incredible and new to me is that
Which I behold: for from my former woes
Spring woes in long succession, and the day
When I shall cease to weep, shall cease to groan,
Will never come.
CHOR. The woes which we endure
Alas! are dreadful.
HEC. O my son, thou son
Of an ill fated mother, by what death
Didst thou expire? through what disastrous cause
Here liest thou prostrate? ah, what bloody hand——
ATT. I know not; on the shore his corse I found.
HEC. Cast up by the impetuous waves, or pierced
With murderous spear?
ATT. The surges of the deep
Had thrown it on the sand.
HEC. Alas! too well
I comprehend the meaning of the dream
Which to these eyes appeared: the spectre borne
On sable pinions no illusion proved,
When, O my son, thee, thee it represented
No longer dwelling in the realms of light.
CHOR. Instructed by that vision, canst thou name
The murderer?
HEC. ’Twas my friend, the Thracian king,
With whom in secrecy his aged sire
Had placed him.
CHOR. Ha! what mean’st thou? to possess
That gold by slaying him?
HEC. O, ’twas a deed
Unutterable, a deed without a name,
Surpassing all astonishment, unholy,
And not to be endured. Where now the laws
Of hospitality? Accursed man,
How cruelly hast thou with reeking sword
Transpierced this unresisting boy, nor heard
The gentle voice of pity!
CHOR. Hapless queen,
How hath some demon, thy malignant foe,
Rendered thee of all mortals the most wretched:
But I behold great Agamemnon come,
And therefore, O my friends, let us be silent.