Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/290

262. Yea, as I stretch my aged limbs upon the ground, and beat upon the earth with both my hands.

. I follow thee and kneel, invoking from the nether world my hapless husband.

. I am being dragged and hurried away—

. O the sorrow of that cry!

. From my own dear country, to dwell beneath a master's roof. Woe is me! O Priam, Priam, slain, unburied, left without a friend, naught dost thou know of my cruel fate.

. No, for o'er his eyes black death hath drawn his pall,—a holy man by sinners slain!

. Woe for the temples of the gods! Woe for our dear city!

. Woe!

. Murderous flame and foeman's spear are now your lot.

. Soon will ye tumble to your own loved soil, and be forgotten.

. And the dust, mounting to heaven on wings like smoke, will rob me of the sight of my home.

. The name of my country will pass into obscurity; all is scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be.

. Did ye hear that and know its purport?

. Aye, 'twas the crash of the citadel.

. The shock will whelm our city utterly. O woe is me! trembling, quaking limbs, support my footsteps! away! to face the day that begins thy slavery.

. Woe for our unhappy town! And yet to the Achæan fleet advance.

. Woe for thee, O land that nursed my little babes!

. Ah! woe!