THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

Euripides [564-580]
Lo, the desolate dark alone,
And headless things, men stumbled on.
And forth, lo, the women go,
The crown of War, the crown of Woe,
To bear the children of the foe
And weep, weep, for Ilion!
(As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching from the
town, laden with spoils. On it sits a mourning Woman
with a child in her arms.)
LEADER
Lo, yonder on the heaped crest
Of a Greek wain, Andromache,
As one that o'er an unknown sea
Tosseth; and on her wave-borne breast
Her loved one clingeth, Hector's child,
Astyanax . . . O most forlorn
Of women, whither go'st thou, borne
'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piled
Spoils of the dead, and pageantry
Of them that hunted Ilion down?
Aye, richly thy new lord shall crown
The mountain shrines of Thessaly!
ANDROMACHE
Forth to the Greek I go,
Driven as a beast is driven. 7
Woe, woe!
HECUBA
ANDROMACHE
Nay, mine is woe:
Woe to none other given,
And the song and the crown therefor!
OZeus!
HECUBA
ANDROMACHE
He hates thee sore!
strophe 1