Hecuba.
O child, O child of a grief-stricken mother!
By what fate didst thou die?—in what doom dost thou
lie?—of what man wast thou slain?
Handmaid.
I know not: on the sea-strand found I him.
Hecuba.
Cast up by the tide, or struck down by the spear in a
blood-reddened hand
On the smooth-levelled sand?700
Handmaid.
The outsea surge in-breaking flung him up.
Hecuba.
Woe's me, I discern it, the vision that blasted my sight!
Neither flitted unheeded that black-winged phantom of night,
Which I saw, which revealed that my son was no more of the light.
Chorus.
Who slew him? Canst thou, dream-arreder, tell?
Hecuba.
'Twas my friend, 'twas my guest, 'twas the Thracian chariot-lord710
To whose charge his grey father had given him to hide and to ward.
Chorus.
Oh, what wouldst say?—slew him to keep the gold?
