Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/358

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From wide Sigean harvest-fields: 75
But never a day was without its grief,
Never a night but renewed our woe.
Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;
And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide, 80
Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,
Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.
Hecuba: ⁠Then, trusty comrades of our fate,
Unbind your tresses and let them flow
Over your shoulders bent with grief,
The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust 85
Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,
Strip from your breasts their covering;
Why veil your beauty? Shame itself 90
Is held in captive bonds. And now
Let your hands wave free to the quickening blows
That resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready,
And thus it is well. I behold once more
My old-time Trojan band. Now stoop
And fill your hands; 'tis right to take
Her dust at least from fallen Troy.
Now let the long-pent grief leap forth, 95
And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe.
Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.
Chorus: ⁠Our hair, in many a funeral torn, 100
We loose; and o'er our streaming locks
Troy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn.
From our shoulders the veiling garments fall, 105
And our breasts invite the smiting hands.
Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength.
Let the distant shores resound with our mourning,
And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountains
Repeat all our wailings, not, after her wont, 110
With curt iteration returning the end.
Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the sky
Record all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands,
With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise.
With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting— 115
Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep.