Are my lord and my sons! Whither now shall I wend me?
Whither flee?—Is there God—is there fiend shall befriend me?
Alone—alone!
Daughters of Troy—O ye heralds of ruin, ye heralds of ruin!—
What profits my life any more, whom your words have undone, have undone?
Now unto yonder pavilion, to tell to my child her undoing,170
Lead, O ye wretchedest feet, lead ye the eld-stricken one!
O daughter, O child of a mother most wretched, forth faring, forth faring,
Come from the tent, O hearken the voice of thy mother's word,
To the end thou mayst know what a rumour of awful despairing, despairing,
Concerning the life of thee, my beloved, but now have I heard!
Enter Polyxena.
Polyxena.
O mother, my mother, what meaneth thy crying?
What strange dread thing
Is this that thou heraldest
That hath scared me, like to a bird forth-flying180
On startled wing
Out of the peace of her nest?
Hecuba.
Alas! woe's me, my daughter!
