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[1231-1245] The Trojan Women 1005
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We too weep for thee,
And the infinite wrong!
{During these lines HECUBA, kneeling by
the body, has been performing a funeral
rite, symbolically staunching the dead
Child's wounds.)
HECUBA
I make thee whole;
I bind thy wounds, O little vanished soul.
This wound and this I heal with linen white:
O emptiness of aid! . . . Yet let the rite
Be spoken. This and . . . Nay, not I, but he,
Thy father far away shall comfort thee!
{She bows her head to the ground and remains motionless
and unseeing.)
CHORUS
Beat, beat thine head:
Beat with the wailing chime
Of hands lifted in time:
Beat and bleed for the dead.
Woe is me for the dead!
HECUBA
O Women! Ye, mine own . . .
{She rises bewildered, as though she had seen a vision.)
LEADER
Hecuba, speak!
Thine are we all. Oh, ere thy bosom break . . .
HECUBA
Lo, I have seen the open hand of God;
And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod
Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate,
Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great
For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell
And bulls' blood on the altars! ... All is well.
Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust
Our high things low and shook our hills as dust,
We had not been this splendour, and our wrong
An everlasting music for the song