Vouchsafe us to cast loose the sterns and curbs
Of these ships, kindly home-return to win540
From Troy, and all to reach our fatherland."
So spake he; in that prayer joined all the host;
Then grasped his golden-plated falchion's hilt,
Drew from the sheath, and to those chosen youths
Of Argos' war-host signed to seize the maid.545
But she, being ware thereof, spake forth this speech:
"O Argives, ye which laid my city low,
Free-willed I die: on my flesh let no man
Lay hand: my neck unflinching will I yield.
But, by the Gods, let me stand free, the while550
Ye slay, that I may die free; for I shame
Slave to be called in Hades, who am royal."
"Yea!" like a great sea roared the host: the King
Spake to the youths to let the maiden go.
And they, soon as they heard that last behest555
Of him of chiefest might, drew back their hands.
And she, when this she heard, her masters' word,
Her vesture grasped, and from the shoulder's height
Rent it adown her side, down to the waist,
And bosom showed and breasts, as of a statue,560
Most fair; and, bowing to the earth her knee,
A word, of all words most heroic, spake[1]:
"Lo here, O youth, if thou art fain to strike
My breast, strike home: but if beneath my neck
Thou wouldest, here my throat is bared to thee."565
And he, loth and yet fain, for ruth of her,
Cleaves with the steel the channels of the breath:
Forth gushed the life-springs: but she, even in death,
Took chiefest thought decorously to fall,
- ↑ But the Scholiast interprets—
"She spake a word, of all most pitiful:"
