CAS. Avaunt! the sacred flame I bring
With reverential awe profound,
And wave the kindled torch around,
O Hymen, thou benignant king.
The bridegroom comes with jocund pride,
I too am styled a happy bride,
My name through Argos’ streets shall ring,
O Hymen, thou benignant king!
While thou attend’st my father’s bier,
O Hecuba, with many a tear,
While Ilion’s ramparts overthrown
From thee demand th’ incessant groan,
Ere the bright sun withhold his ray,
E’en in the glaring front of day,
I bid the nuptial incense blaze
To thee, O Hymen, thee whose power
Invoking at her bridal hour
The bashful virgin comes. Yon maze
Encircling, ’mid the choral dance,
As ancient usage bids, advance,
And in thy hand a flaming pine,
O mother, brandish. God of wine,
Thy shouting votaries hither bring,
As if in Ilion thou hadst found
Old Priam still a happy king.
Range that holy group around,
O Phœbus, in thy laureate mead,
Thy temple, shall the victim bleed.
Let Hymen, Hymen, Hymen, sound.
My mother, for the dance prepare,
Vault nimbly, and our revels share.
At Hymen’s shrine, my friends, prolong
Your vows, awake th’ ecstatic song;
In honour of my bridal day,
Chant, Phrygian nymphs, the choral lay,
And celebrate the chief whom fate
Ordains to be Cassandra’s mate.
CHOR. Wilt thou not stop the princess, lest she rush
With frantic step amid the Grecian host?
HEC. O Vulcan, wont to light the bridal torch,
Now dost thou brandish an accursed flame;
My soul foresaw not this. Alas! my daughter,
I little thought, that ’midst the din of arms,
Or while we crouch beneath the Argive spear,
Thou couldst have celebrated such espousals.
Give me the torch, for while with frantic speed
Thou rushest on, it trembles in thy hand.
Nor yet have thy afflictions, O my daughter,
Brought back thy wandering reason, thou remain’st
Disordered as before. Ye Trojan dames,
Remove yon blazing pines, and in the stead
Of these her bridal songs let tears express
The anguish of your souls.
CAS. O mother, place
A laureate wreath on my victorious brow,
Exulting lead me to the monarch’s bed.
And if for thee too slowly I advance,
Drag me along by force; for I am now
No more the spouse of Phœbus; but that king
Of Greece, famed Agamemnon, shall in me
Take to his arms a bride more inauspicious
Than even Helen’s self: him will I smite,
And lay his palace waste, in great revenge
For my slain sire and brothers. But I cease
These menaces, and speak not of the axe
Which shall smite me and others, or the conflict
My wedlock shall produce, whence by the hands
Of her own son a mother shall be slain,
And th’ overthrow of Atreus’ guilty house.
This city will I prove to have been happier
Than the victorious Greeks (for though the gods
Inspire, I curb the transports of my soul),
Who for one single woman, to regain
The beauteous Helen only, wasted lives
Unnumbered. Their wise leader, in the cause
Of those he hated, slew whom most he loved;
He to his brother yielded up his daughter,
Joy of his house, for that vile woman’s sake,
Who with her own consent, and not by force,
Was borne away. But at Scamander’s banks
When they arrived, they died, though not by exile
Torn from their country, or their native towers:
But them who in embattled fields were slain
Their children saw not, nor in decent shroud
Were they enwrapped by their loved consorts’ hands,
But lie deserted on a foreign coast:
Their sorrows also who remained at home
Are similar; in widowhood forlorn
Some die; and others, of their own brave sons
Deprived, breed up the children of a stranger;
Nor at their slighted tombs is blood poured forth
To drench the thirsty ground. Their host deserves
Praises like these. ’Tis better not to speak
Of what is infamous, nor shall my Muse
Record the shameful tale. But, first and greatest
Of glories, in their country’s cause expired
The Trojans; the remains of those who fell
In battle, by their friends borne home, obtained
Sepulchral honours in their native soil,
That duteous office kindred hands performed:
While every Phrygian who escaped the sword
Still with his wife and children did reside,
Joy to the Greeks unknown. Now hear the fate
Of Hector, him whom thou bewail’st, esteemed
The bravest of our heroes, by the Greeks
Landing on Ilion’s coast the warrior fell;
In their own country had the foe remained,
His valour ne’er had been displayed: but Paris
Wedded the daughter of imperial Jove,
In her possessing an illustrious bride.
It is the wise man’s duty to avoid
Perilous war. After the die is cast,
He who undaunted meets the fatal stroke,
Adds to his native city fair renown;
But the last moments of a coward shame
The land which gave him birth. Forbear to weep,
My mother, for thy ruined country’s fate;
Weep not because thou seest thy daughter borne
To Agamemnon’s bed, for by these spousals
Our most inveterate foes shall I destroy.
CHOR. How sweetly ’midst the sorrows of thy house
Thou smil’st! ere long perchance wilt thou afford
A melancholy instance that thy strains
Are void of truth.
TAL. Had not Apollo fired
E’en to distraction thy perverted soul,
Thou on my honoured leader, ere he quit
The shores of Ilion, shouldst not unavenged
Pour forth these omens. But, alas! the great,
And they who in th’ opinion of mankind
Are wise, in no respect excel the vulgar.
For the dread chieftain of the Grecian host,
The son of Atreus, loves with boundless passion
This damsel frantic as the Mænades.
Myself am poor, yet would not I accept
A wife like her. Since thou hast lost thy reason,
I to the winds consign thy bitter taunts
’Gainst Argos, with the praises thou bestow’st
On Troy. Thou bride of Agamemnon, come,
Follow me to the fleet. But when Ulysses
Would bear you hence, O Hecuba, obey
The summons, you are destined to attend
A queen called virtuous by all those who come
To Ilion.
CAS. Arrogant, detested slave!
All heralds are like thee, the public scorn,
Crouching with abject deference to some king
Or city. Say’st thou, “To Ulysses’ house
My mother shall be borne?” Of what account
Were then the oracles Apollo gave
Uttered by me his priestess, which declare,
“She here shall die?” I spare the shameful tale.
He knows not, the unhappy Ithacus,
What evils yet await him, in the tears
Of me and every captive Phrygian maid,
While he exults, and deems our misery gain.
Ten more long years elapsed beyond the term
Spent in besieging Ilion, he alone
Shall reach his country; witness thou who dwell’st
’Midst ocean’s straits tempestuous, dire Charybdis,
Ye mountains where on human victims feast
The Cyclops, with Ligurian Circe’s isle,
Whose wand transforms to swine, the billowy deep,
Covered with shipwrecks, the bewitching Lotus,
The sacred Oxen of the Sun, whose flesh
Destined to utter a tremendous voice
The banquet shall embitter: he at length,
In a few words his history to comprise,
Alive must travel to the shades beneath,
And hardly ’scaping from a watery grave
In his own house find evils numberless.
But why do I recount Ulysses’ toils?
Lead on, that I the sooner in the realms
Of Pluto, with that bridegroom may consummate
My nuptials. Ruthless miscreant as thou art,
Thou in the tomb ignobly shalt be plunged
At midnight; nor shall the auspicious beams
Of day illumine thy funereal rites,
O leader of the Grecian host, who deem’st
That thou a mighty conquest hast achieved.
Near to my lord’s remains, and in that vale,
Where down a precipice the torrent foams,
My corse shall to the hungry wolves be thrown,
The corse of Phœbus’ priestess. O ye wreaths
Of him whom best of all the gods I loved,
Adieu, ye symbols of my holy office,
I leave those feasts the scenes of past delight,
Torn from my brows avaunt, for I retain
My chastity unsullied still; the winds
To thee shall waft them, O prophetic king.
Where is your general’s bark, which I am doomed
T’ ascend? the rising breezes shall unfurl
Your sails this instant; for in me ye bear
One of the three Eumenides from Troy.
Farewell, my mother, weep not for my fate,
O my dear country, my heroic brothers,
And aged father, in the realms beneath,
Ere long shall ye receive me: but victorious
Will I descend among the mighty dead,
When I have laid th’ accursed mansions waste
Of our destroyers, Atreus’ impious sons.
[_Exeunt_ CASSANDRA _and_ TALTHYBIUS.
CHOR. Attendants of the aged Hecuba,
Behold ye not your mistress, how she falls
Upon the pavement speechless? Why neglect
To prop her sinking frame! Ye slothful nymphs,
Raise up this woman, whom a weight of years
Bows to the dust.
HEC. Away, and on this spot
Allow me, courteous damsels, to remain:
No longer welcome as in happier days
Are your kind offices; this humble posture,
This fall best suits my present lowly state,
Best suits what I already have endured
And still am doomed to suffer. O ye gods,
In you I call upon no firm allies,
Yet sure ’tis decent to invoke the gods
When we by adverse fortune are opprest.
First, therefore, all the blessings I enjoyed
Would I recount, hence shall my woes demand
The greater pity. Born to regal state,
And with a mighty king in wedlock joined,
A race of valiant sons did I produce;
I speak not of their numbers, but the noblest
Among the Phrygian youths, such as no Trojan,
Nor Grecian, nor barbarian dame could boast:
Them saw I fall beneath the hostile spear,
And at their tomb these tresses cut: their sire,
The venerable Priam, I bewailed not,
From being told of his calamitous fate
By others, but these eyes beheld him slain,
E’en at the altar of Hercæan Jove,
And Ilion taken. I those blooming maids
Have also lost, whom with maternal love
I nurtured for some noble husband’s bed;
They from these arms are torn: nor can I hope
Or to be seen by them, or e’er to see
My children more. But last of all, to crown
My woes, an aged slave, shall I be borne
To Greece; and in such tasks will they employ me
As are most grievous in the wane of life;
Me, who am Hector’s mother, at the door
Stationed to keep the keys, or knead the bread,
And on the pavement stretch my withered limbs,
Which erst reposed upon a regal couch,
And in such tattered vestments, as belie
My former rank, enwrap my wasted frame.
Wretch that I am, who, through one woman’s nuptials,
Have borne, and am hereafter doomed to bear,
Such dreadful ills. O my unhappy daughter,
Cassandra, whom the gods have rendered frantic,
With what sad omens hath thy virgin zone
Been loosed! and where, Polyxena, art thou,
O virgin most unfortunate? but none
Of all my numerous progeny, or male
Or female, comes to aid their wretched mother.
Why, therefore, would ye lift me up? what room
Is there for hope? me who with tender foot
Paced through the streets of Troy, but now a slave,
Drag from the palace to the rushy mat
And stony pillow, that where’er I fall
There may I die, through many, many tears
Exhausted. Of the prosperous and the great
Pronounce none happy till the hour of death.