For pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town
Should sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone
down,
By the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean
might
Sacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the
fight-
That, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and
torn,
The maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of
scorn!
I hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of
despair-
Woe, woe for the doom that shall be-as in grasp of the foeman they
fare!
antistrophe 2
For a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate
flower
Is plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal
bower!
Alas for the hate and the horror-how say it?-less hateful by
far
Is the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of
war!
For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the
wall;
There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over
all,
And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he
springs,
And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!
Studies
