Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/375

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Troades
357

Ulysses: With stripes, with flames, with lingering pains of death
Shalt thou be forced to speak, against thy will,
What now thou dost conceal, and from thy heart
Its inmost secrets bring. Necessity 580
Doth often prove more strong than piety.
Andromache: Prepare thy flames, thy blows, and all the arts
Devised for cruel punishment: dire thirst,
Starvation, every form of suffering;
Come, rend my vitals with the sword's deep thrust;
In dungeon, foul and dark, immure; do all 585
A victor, full of wrath and fear, can do
Or dare; still will my mother heart, inspired
With high and dauntless courage, scorn thy threats.
Ulysses: This very love of thine, which makes thee bold,
Doth warn the Greeks to counsel for their sons. 590
This strife, from home remote, these ten long years
Of war, and all the ills which Calchas dreads,
Would slight appear to me, if for myself
I feared: but thou dost threat Telemachus.
Andromache: Unwillingly, Ulysses, do I give
To thee, or any Grecian, cause of joy;
Yet must I give it, and speak out the woe,
The secret grief that doth oppress my soul. 595
Rejoice, O sons of Atreus, and do thou,
According to thy wont, glad tidings bear
To thy companions: Hector's son is dead.
Ulysses: What proof have we that this thy word is true?
Andromache: May thy proud victor's strongest threat befall,
And bring my death with quick and easy stroke; 600
May I be buried in my native soil,
May earth press lightly on my Hector's bones:
According as my son, deprived of light,
Amidst the dead doth lie, and, to the tomb
Consigned, hath known the funeral honors due
To those who live no more. 605
Ulysses [joyfully]: Then are the fates
Indeed fulfilled, since Hector's son is dead,
And I with joy unto the Greeks will go,
With grateful tale of peace at last secure.