MIN. May I accost the god who to my sire
In blood is nearest, mighty, through high Heaven
Revered, and lay aside our ancient hate?
NEP. ’Tis well, thou royal maid: an interview
’Twixt those of the same house, is to the soul
An efficacious philtre.
MIN. I applaud
Those who are temperate in their wrath, and bring
Such arguments, O monarch, as affect
Both you and me.
NEP. From all th’ assembled gods
Some new commission bear’st thou, or from Jove,
Or what celestial power?
MIN. From none of these.
But in the cause of Troy, whose fields we tread,
I to your aid betake me, and would join
Our common strength.
NEP. Hast thou then laid aside
Thy former hate, to pity Troy, consumed
By the relentless flames?
MIN. First, thither turn
Your views: to me will you unfold your counsels,
And aid the schemes I would effect?
NEP. With joy:
But I meanwhile would thy designs explore,
Whether thou com’st on the behalf of Greece,
Or Troy.
MIN. The Trojans, erst my foes, I wish
To cheer, and to embitter the return
Of the victorious Grecian host.
NEP. What means
This change of temper? to excess thou hat’st
And lov’st at random.
MIN. Know you not the insult
Which hath been shown to me, and to my temple?
NEP. I know that Ajax violently tore
Cassandra thence.
MIN. Yet by the Greeks unpunished
He ’scaped, and e’en uncensured.
NEP. Though the Greeks
O’erthrew Troy’s walls through thy auxiliar might——
MIN. And for this very cause will I conspire
With you to punish them.
NEP. I am prepared
For any enterprise thou wilt. What mean’st thou?
MIN. Their journey home I am resolved to make
Most inauspicious.
NEP. While they yet remain
Upon the shore, or ’midst the briny waves?
MIN. As to their homes from Ilion’s coast they sail.
For Jove will send down rain, immoderate hail,
And pitchy blasts of air: he promises
To give me too his thunderbolts to smite
The Greeks and fire their ships; but join your aid,
Cause the Ægean deep with threefold waves,
And ocean’s whirlpools horribly to rage,
Fill with their courses the unfathomed caves
Beneath Eubœa’s rocks, that Greece may learn
My shrines to reverence, nor provoke the gods.
NEP. It shall be done: there need not many words
To recommend thy suit. My storms shall rouse
Th’ Ægean deep; the shores of Myconè,
Scyros with Lemnos, all the Delian rocks,
And steep Caphareus with full many a corse
Will I o’erspread. But mount Olympus’ height,
And from the Thunderer’s hand his flaming shafts
Receiving, mark when the devoted host
Of Greece weigh anchor. Frantic is the man
Who dares to lay the peopled city waste,
Temples with tombs profaning, and bereaves
Of their inhabitants those sacred vaults
Where sleep the dead; at length shall vengeance smite
That hardened miscreant in his bold career.
[_Exeunt._
_The Scene opens, and discovers_ HECUBA _on a couch_.
HEC. Arise, thou wretch, and from the dust uplift
Thy drooping head; though Ilion be no more,
And thou a queen no longer, yet endure
With patience Fortune’s change, and as the tide
Or as capricious Fortune wills, direct
Thy sails, nor turn against the dashing wave
Life’s stubborn prow, for chance must guide thy voyage.
Alas! for what but groans belongs to me
Whose country, children, husband, are no more?
Oh, mighty splendour of my sires, now pent
In a small tomb, how art thou found a thing
Of no account! What portion of my woes
Shall I suppress, or what describe, how frame
A plaintive strain? Now fixed on this hard couch,
Wretch that I am, are my unwieldy limbs.
Ah me! my head, my temples, ah, my side!
Oh, how I wish to turn, and to stretch forth
These joints! My tears shall never cease to flow,
For like the Muse’s lyre, th’ affecting tale
Of their calamities consoles the wretched.
Ye prows of those swift barks which to the coast
Of fated Ilion, from the Grecian ports
Adventurous launched amid the purple wave,
Accompanied by inauspicious pæans
From pipes, and the shrill flute’s enlivening voice,
While from the mast devolved the twisted cordage
By Egypt first devised, ye to the bay
Of Troy did follow Menelaus’ wife,
Helen, abhorred adult’ress, who disgraced
Castor her brother, and Eurotas’ stream:
She murdered Priam, sire of fifty sons,
And me the wretched Hecuba hath plunged
Into this misery. Here, alas! I sit
In my loathed prison, Agamemnon’s tent;
From princely mansions dragged, an aged slave,
My hoary tresses shorn, this head deformed
With baldness. But, alas! ye hapless wives
Of Ilion’s dauntless warriors, blooming maids,
And brides affianced in an evil hour,
Together let us weep, for Ilion’s smoke
Ascends the skies. Like the maternal bird,
Who wails her callow brood, I now commence
A strain far different from what erst was heard
When I on mighty Priam’s sceptred state
Proudly relying, led the Phrygian dance
Before the hallowed temples of the gods.
[_She rises, and comes forth from the tent._