Gods of the Underworld, save ye my son,
Mine house's anchor, its only one,80
By the friend of his father warded well
Where the snows of Thrace veil forest and fell!
But a strange new stroke draweth near,
And a strain of wailing for them that wail.
Ah, never as now did the heart in me quail
With the thrilling of ceaseless fear.
O that Kassandra I might but descry
To arrede me my dreams, O daughters of Troy,
Or Helenus, god-taught seer!
For a dappled fawn I beheld which a wolf's red fangs
were tearing,90
Which he dragged from my knees whereto she had
clung in her piteous despairing.
This terror withal on my spirit is come,
That the ghost of the mighty Achilles hath risen, and stood
High on the crest of his earth-heaped tomb;
And he claimeth a guerdon of honour, the spilling of blood,
And a woe-stricken Trojan maiden's doom.
O Gods, I am suppliant before you!—in any wise turn,
I implore you,
This fate from the child of my womb!
Enter Chorus of Trojan Captive Women.
Chorus.
I have hasted hitherward ; the pavilions of my lord,100
O my queen, have I forsaken, in the which I sojourn here,
