Agamemnon: So shall it be; yet had the host been able to sail, I could
not have granted thee this boon; but, as it is, since the god sends
forth no favouring breeze, we needs must abide, seeing, as we do,
that sailing cannot be. Good luck to thee! for this is the interest
alike of citizen and state, that the wrong-doer be punished and the
good man prosper. (Agamemnon departs as Hecuba withdraws into the
tent.)
Chorus: (singing, strophe 1)
No more, my native Ilium, shalt thou be counted among the towns ne'er
sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around,
wasting thee with the spear; shorn art thou of thy coronal of towers,
and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall
tread thy streets.
(antistrophe 1)
'Twas in the middle of the night my ruin came, in the hour when sleep
steals sweetly o'er the eyes after the feast is done. My husband,
the music o'er, and the sacrifice that sets the dance afoot now ended,
was lying in our bridal-chamber, his spear hung on a peg; with never
a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores;
Studies
