Talthybius.
Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, hath taken her.
Hecuba.
And I, whose slave am I,
The shaken head, the arm that creepeth by,
Staff-crutchèd, like to fall?
Talthybius.
Odysseus, Ithaca's king, hath thee for thrall.
Hecuba.
Beat, beat the crownless head:
Rend the cheek till the tears run red!
A lying man and a pitiless
Shall be lord of me, a heart full-flown
With scorn of righteousness:
O heart of a beast where law is none,
Where all things change so that lust be fed,
The oath and the deed, the right and the wrong,
Even the hate of the forkèd tongue:
Even the hate turns and is cold,
False as the love that was false of old!
O Women of Troy, weep for me!
Yea, I am gone: I am gone my ways.
Mine is the crown of misery,
The bitterest day of all our days.
Leader.
Thy fate thou knowest, Queen: but I know not
What lord of South or North has won my lot.
