Hec. Joy is fled, and Troy o'erthrown.
And. Woe is me!
Hec. Dead too all my gallant sons!
And. Alack and well-a-day!
Hec. Ah me for my—
And. Misery!
Hec. Piteous the fate
And. Of our city,
Hec. Smouldering in the smoke.
And. Come, my husband, come to me!
Hec. Ah hapless wife! thou callest on my son who lieth in the tomb.
And. Thy wife's defender, come!
Hec. Do thou, who erst didst make the Achæans grieve, eldest of the sons I bare to Priam in the days gone by, take me to thy rest in Hades' halls!
And. Bitter are these regrets, unhappy mother, bitter these woes to bear; our city ruined, and sorrow evermore to sorrow added, through the will of angry heaven, since the day that son[1] of thine escaped his doom, he that for a bride accursed brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy is come to slavery's yoke.
Hec. O my country, O unhappy land, I weep for thee now left behind; now dost thou behold thy piteous end; and thee, my house, I weep, wherein I suffered travail. O my children! reft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs and never shed a tear.
- ↑ i.e., Paris, who had been exposed to die on account of an oracle foretelling the misery he would cause if he grew to man's estate; but shepherds had found him on the hills and reared him.
