Waving those torches o'er the roofs of Troy? TALTHYBIUS, HECUBA, CHORUS. TALTHYBIUS. To you I speak, O leaders of the troops And from these regions sail. But as for thee, HECUBA. Ab, wretched me! this surely is the last, The dire completion this, of all my woes. I leave my country: Ilion's bulwarks flame. Yet, O decrepid feet, with painful haste Bear me along, that I may bid adieu To my unhappy city. Thou, O Troy, Distinguish'd erst among Barbarian tribes By thy superior prowess, soon shalt lose The most illustrious name thou didst acquire: Thee will the flames consume, and us our foes Drag from our home to slavery. O ye Gods! Upon the Gods yet wherefore should I call? For when we erst invok'd them oft, they heard not. Come on, and let us rush amid the flames: For in the ruins of my blazing country 'Twill be to me most glorious to expire. TALTHYBIUS. Thy griefs, O wretched woman, make thee frantic. But lead her hence, neglect not. For Ulysses Obtain'd this prize, and she to him must go. HECUBA. O dread Saturnian king, from whom the Phrygians Derive their origin, dost thou behold Our sufferings, most unworthy of the race CHORUS. He surely doth behold: But this great city, city now no more, Is ruin'd: nought remains of Troy. HECUBA. The blaze Of Ilion glares, the fire hath caught the roofs, CHORUS. As the light smoak on rapid wing ascends To heaven, how swiftly vanishes fallen Troy ! Torrents of flame have laid the palace waste, And o'er its summit waves the hostile spear, HECUBA. O fostering soil, that gave my children birth. CHORUS. Alas! alas! HECUBA. Yet hear me, O my sons, Your Mother's voice distinguish. CHORUS. With loud plaints Thou call'st upon the dead, those aged limbs Stretcht on the ground, and scraping up the dust We forcibly are borne CHORUS. Most doleful sound? HECUBA. To servile roofs. CHORUS. From my dear native land. HECUBA. (18) Slain, uninterr'd, abandon'd by thy friends, Thou sure, O Priam, know'st not what I suffer. For sable Death hath clos'd thine eyes for ever; Tho' pious, thou by impious hands wert murder'd. O ye polluted temples of the Gods, And thou my dearest city. CHORUS. Ye, alas, Are by the deadly flame and pointed spear Now occupied, on this beloved soil Soon shall you lie a heap of nameless ruins : For dust, which mix'd with smoak, to Heaven ascends, No longer will permit me to discern Where erst my habitation stood: the land Loses its very name, and each memorial Of pristine grandeur; wretched Troy's no more. HECUBA. Ye know the fatal truth, ye heard the crash (18) Virgil in the like manner represents the body of the unfortunate Priam as deprived of funereal rites, and left exposed on the strand by the victorious Greeks: Jacet ingens littore truncus, Avulsumque humeris caput & sine nomine corpus. "On the bleak shore now lies th' abandon'd King, DRYDEN. The latter part of the description is conformable to the account given by Quintus Calaber, who represents the head of Priam as severed from his body by Neoptolemus with as much ease as the reaper cuts an ear of ripe corn: the circumstance of Priam's being left without a funereal pyre, while Troy was burning, flammâ indiget ardente Trojâ, is also recorded by Seneca with his usual quaintness. |