Parerga/The Fall of Troy
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THE FALL OF TROY.
FROM THE HECUBA. (905-951.)
Σὺ μὲν, ὦ πατρὶς Ιλιάς,Τῶν ἀπορθήτων πόλις οὐκέτι λέξειΤοῖον Ἑλλάνων νέφος ἀμφί σε κρύπτειΔορὶ δὴ δορὶ πέρσαν. κ.τ.λ.
CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN.
Oh never more, my native Troy,The lay of high heroic storyShall tell thy might with patriot's joy,Thy sons' unconquered glory.The deadly cloud of Grecian warHath closed around thy sinking star;Beneath the storming spearmen's blow,All desolate, thou liest low;Shorn of thy towers' imperial crown,In dust and ashes stricken down.Oh! never shall I tread thee more,My own, my hapless native shore!
It was the hour of midnight slumbers,When the Destroyer came;Hush'd were the lute, the minstrel's numbers,The choral loud acclaim; Each weary reveller's torch was dim.My husband slept, reposing himFrom that thanksgiving festival.His spear was hanging on the wall,No longer ready for the fray:For now their fleet had left the bay,And deem'd we that the leaguering bandHad fled our rescued Trojan land.
And I my gather'd locks was bandingNeath the circling fillet prest,Before the golden mirror standing,Ere I sought my peaceful rest;When, lo, a sound of far alarmsCame echoing through our halls:—It is the clang, the clash of arms!The foe is in the walls!And nearer! hark! the cheer, the cryOf the on-trampling soldieryRings through the captured town!—"On, Sons of Greeks!"the leaders call;"Now is the hour that Troy must fall!"Think of your homes—on, on! to earn"Victory, spoil, and glad return."Now break her bulwarks down!"
Hurriedly folding round my breast,In Dorian guise, the first-seized vest, I fled my home, and sought the shrineOf the Virgin Power Divine,But there I knelt in vain—They tore me thence. I saw my lord,He lay by foreign falchions goredOn his own threshold slain.And I was hurried o'er the seaThe slayer's spoil. Still upon thee,My fallen country, looking back,As clove their ship her homeward track.I gazed, till blinding tears prevail'd,And fainting nature's firmness fail'd.
Yet cursed I, in my soul's despair,The sister of the sons of Jove,And Ida's swain. Ye guilty pair,Ye fiends to Troy, your sinful loveHath torn me from my country's walls,Hath slain her sons, hath sack'd her halls.Helen, the victims of thy crimeHeap on thy head their malison!Ye billows, to her native climeRefuse to bear th' accursed one.Let her not see again the homeShe left in sin and shame to roam.