hild from death....
O, hide my head for shame: fling me beneath
Your galleys' benches!...

[_She swoons: then half-rising._

Quick: I must begone
To the bridal.... I have lost my child, my own!

[_The Soldiers close round her._

LEADER.

O Troy ill-starred; for one strange woman, one
Abhorred kiss, how are thine hosts undone!

TALTHYBIUS (_bending over_ ANDROMACHE _and gradually
taking the Child from her_).

Come, Child: let be that clasp of love
Outwearied! Walk thy ways with me,
Up to the crested tower, above
Thy father's wall.... Where they decree
Thy soul shall perish.--Hold him: hold!--
Would God some other man might ply
These charges, one of duller mould,
And nearer to the iron than I!

HECUBA.

O Child, they rob us of our own,
Child of my Mighty One outworn:
Ours, ours thou art!--Can aught be done
Of deeds, can aught of pain be borne,
To aid thee?--Lo, this beaten head,
This bleeding bosom! These I spread
As gifts to thee. I can thus much.
Woe, woe for Troy, and woe for thee!
What fall yet lacketh, ere we touch
The last dead deep of misery?

[_The Child, who has started back from_ TALTHYBIUS, _is taken up by one
of the Soldiers and borne back towards the city, while_ ANDROMACHE _is
set again on the Chariot and driven off towards the ships._ TALTHYBIUS
_goes with the Child._

* * * * *

CHORUS.

[_Strophe I._

In Salamis, filled with the foaming[34]
Of billows and murmur of bees,
Old Telamon stayed from his roaming,
Long ago, on a throne of the seas;
Looking out on the hills olive-laden,
Enchanted, where first from the earth
The grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden
Athena had birth;
A soft grey crown for a city
Beloved a City of Light:
Yet he rested not there, nor had pity,
But went forth in his might,
Where Heracles wandered, the lonely
Bow-bearer, and lent him his hands
For the wrecking of one land only,
Of Ilion, Ilion only,
Most hated of lands!

[_Antistrophe_ I.

Of the bravest of Hellas he made him
A ship-folk, in wrath for the Steeds,
And sailed the wide waters, and stayed him
At last amid Simois' reeds;
And the oars beat slow in the river,
And the long ropes held in the strand,
And he felt for his bow and his quiver,
The wrath of his hand.
And the old king died; and the towers
That Phoebus had builded did fall,
And his wrath, as a flame that devours,
Ran red over all;
And th