Whose lords for no wreaths ran their terrible courses, 1020
Where the princes of Ilium to Hades descended,
Where upstreameth no more with the altar-flames blended
The odour of incense to dream through the sky
Round the feet of Immortals—from her that was Troy!
(Str. 2)
And Atreides hath passed; for on him lighted slaughter
At the hands of a wife: and with murder she bought her
Death, at the hands of her child to receive it:
For a God's, O a God's hest levin-wise glared 1030
Bodings of death on her, doomings declared
In the hour Agamemnon's son forth fared
To his temple from Argos; then thundered it o'er him;
And he slew her, he murdered the mother that bore him!
God, Phœbus!—ah must I, ah must I believe it?
(Ant. 2)
And wherever the Hellenes were gathered was mourning
Of wives for their lost ones, the sons unreturning,
And of brides from their bowers of espousal departing 1040
To another lord's couch:—O, not only on thee
Down swooping fell anguish of misery,
Nor alone on thy loved ones; but Hellas must be
Bowed 'neath the plague, 'neath the plague; and on-sweeping
Like a cloud whence the death-rain of Hades was dripping,
Passed the scourge, o'er the Phrygians' fair harvest-fields darting.
Enter Peleus, attended.
Peleus.
Women of Phthia, unto that I ask
