Hermione.
Barbarian chattel! Stubborn impudence!
Dost thou brave death!—Soon will I make thee rise
From this thy session, yea, of thine own will;
Such lure have I for thee:—yet will I hide
The word: the deed itself shall soon declare. 265
Ay, sit thou fast!—though clamps of molten lead
Encompassed thee, yet will I make thee rise,
Ere come Achilles' son, in whom thou trustest. [Exit.
Andromache.
I do trust . . . . Strange that God hath given to men
Salves for the venom of all creeping pests, 270
But none hath ever yet devised a balm
For venomous woman, worse than fire or viper:
So dire a mischief unto men are we.
Chorus.
(Str. 1)
Herald of woes, to the glen deep-hiding
In Ida came Zeus's and Maia's son[1];
As who reineth a triumph of white steeds,[2] guiding
The Goddesses three, did the God pace on.
With frontlet of beauty, with trappings of doom,
For the strife to the steadings of herds did they come, 280
To the stripling shepherd in solitude biding,
And the hearth of the lodge in the forest lone.
- ↑ Hermes, who brought Hera, Athena, and Aphroditê to the judgment of Paris.
- ↑ Cf. "I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots." (Song of Songs, i, 9).
