HKB
MENELAUS.
Thy thought doth walk with mine in one intent. 'Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she went Forth to a stranger's bed. And all her fair Tale of enchantment, 'tis a thing of air!...
[Turning furiously upon HELEN.
Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yet With stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt Be paid at last. And ere this night is o'er Thy dead face shall dishonour me no more!
HELEN (kneeling before him and embracing him).
Behold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees; Lay not upon my head the phantasies Of Heaven. Remember all, and slay me not!
HECUBA.
Remember them she murdered, them that fought Beside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!
MENELAUS.
Peace, agèd woman, peace! 'Tis not for her; She is as naught to me. (To the Soldiers) ... March on before, Ye ministers, and tend her to the shore ... And have some chambered galley set for her, Where she may sail the seas.
HECUBA.
If thou be there, I charge thee, let not her set foot therein!
MENELAUS.
How? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?
HECUBA.
A lover once, will alway love again.
MENELAUS.
If that he loved be evil, he will fain Hate it!... Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done. Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own.... Thou counsellest very well.... And when we come To Argos, then ... O then some pitiless doom Well-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind Once for all time the law on womankind Of faithfulness!... 'Twill be no easy thing, God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling A chill on the dreams of women, though they be Wilder of wing and loathèd more than she!
[Exit, following HELEN, who is escorted by the Soldiers.
CHORUS[42].
Some Women.
[Strophe I.
And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense, And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion? The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence, The myrrh on the air and the wreathèd towers gone? And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows, The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows, And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows, The lit house most holy of the Dawn?
EURIPIDES
Others.
[Antistrophe I.
The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy, The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer: The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy, The twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear: My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high, Were they all to thee as nothing, thou thronèd in the sky, Thronèd in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die, Passeth in the wind and the flare?
A Woman.
[Strophe 2.
Dear one, O husband mine, Thou in the dim dominions Driftest with waterless lips, Unburied; and me the ships Shall bear o'er the bitter brine, Storm-birds upon angry pinions, Where the towers of the Giants[43] shine O'er Argos cloudily, And the riders ride by the sea.
Others.
And children still in the Gate Crowd and cry, A multitude desolate, Voices that float and wait As the tears run dry: 'Mother, alone on the shore They drive me, far from thee: Lo, the dip of the oar, The black hull on the sea! Is it the Isle Immortal, Salamis, waits for me? Is it the Rock that broods Over the sundered floods Of Corinth, the ancient portal Of Pelops' sovranty?'
A Woman.
[Antistrophe 2.
Out in the waste of foam, Where rideth dark Menelaus, Come to us there, O white And jagged, with wild sea-light And crashing of oar-blades, come, O thunder of God, and slay us: While our tears are wet for home, While out in the storm go we, Slaves of our enemy!
Others.