Beware the queen!
Why does she madly in her woman's hand
Those naked weapons bear? Whom does she seek 735
With brandished battle-ax, though Spartan bred,
Like some fierce warrior of the Amazons?
What horrid vision next affronts mine eyes?
A mighty Afric lion, king of beasts,
Lies low, death-smitten by his cruel mate;
While at his mangled[1] neck a low-born beast 740
Gnaws greedily.
Why do ye summon me,
Saved only of my house, ye kindred shades?
I'll follow thee, my father, buried[2] deep
Beneath the stones of Troy; and thee, O prop
Of Phrygia, the terror of the Greeks,
I see, though not in brave and fair array,
As once thou cam'st, still flushing with the glow 745
Of burning ships; but with thy members torn
And foully mangled by the dragging thongs.
And thee, O Troilus, I follow too,
Alas, too quickly met with Peleus' son!
I see thy face, my poor Deïphobus,
Past recognition scarred. Is this the gift
Of thy new wife? 750
Ah me, 'tis sweet to go
Along the borders of the Stygian pool;
To see the savage hound of Tartarus,
The realms of greedy Dis, and Charon old,
Whose dusky skiff shall bear two royal souls
Across the murky Phlegethon today,
The vanquished and the vanquisher. Ye shades,
And thee, dread stream, by which the gods of heaven 755
Do swear their straightest oaths, I pray ye both:
Withdraw the curtain of your hidden realm,
That so yon shadowy throng of Phrygians
May look upon Mycenae's woes. Behold,
Poor souls; the wheel of fortune backward turns.
See, see! the squalid sisters come, 760
