Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/357

Rh Whose thirst for blood had not been satisfied By that old man just slipping o'er the verge Of life? Whom would not heavenly witnesses Restrain from crime? Who would not stay his hand Before the sacred altar, last resort Of fallen thrones? Yet he, our noble Priam, The king, and father of so many kings, Lies like the merest peasant unentombed; And, though all Troy's aflame, there's not a brand To light his pyre and give him sepulture. And still the heavenly powers are not appeased. Behold the urn; and, subject to its lot, The maids and matrons of our princely line, Who wait their future lords. To whom shall I, An agéd and unprized allotment, fall? One Grecian lord has fixed his longing eyes On Hector's queen; another prays the lot To grant to him the bride of Helenus; Antenor's spouse is object of desire, And e'en thy hand, Cassandra, hath its suitor: My lot alone they deprecate and fear. And can ye cease your plaints? O captive throng, Come beat upon your breasts, and let the sound Of your loud lamentations rise anew, The while we celebrate in fitting wise Troy's funeral; let fatal Ida, seat Of that ill-omened judgment, straight resound With echoes of our pitiful refrain.

Chorus: Not an untrained band, to tears unknown, Thou callest to grief, for our tears have rained In streams unending through the years, Since the time when the Phrygian guest arrived At the friendly court of Tvndarus, Sailing the sea in his vessel framed From the sacred pines of Cybele. Ten winters have whitened Ida's slopes, So often stripped for our funeral pyres; Ten years have ripened the waving grain Which the trembling reaper has garnered in