Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/375

Rh Ulysses: With stripes, with flames, with lingering pains of death Shalt thou be forced to speak, against thy will, What now thou dost conceal, and from thy heart Its inmost secrets bring. Necessity Doth often prove more strong than piety. Andromache: Prepare thy flames, thy blows, and all the arts Devised for cruel punishment: dire thirst, Starvation, every form of suffering; Come, rend my vitals with the sword's deep thrust; In dungeon, foul and dark, immure; do all A victor, full of wrath and fear, can do Or dare; still will my mother heart, inspired With high and dauntless courage, scorn thy threats. Ulysses: This very love of thine, which makes thee bold, Doth warn the Greeks to counsel for their sons. This strife, from home remote, these ten long years Of war, and all the ills which Calchas dreads, Would slight appear to me, if for myself I feared: but thou dost threat Telemachus. Andromache: Unwillingly, Ulysses, do I give To thee, or any Grecian, cause of joy; Yet must I give it, and speak out the woe, The secret grief that doth oppress my soul. Rejoice, O sons of Atreus, and do thou, According to thy wont, glad tidings bear To thy companions: Hector's son is dead. Ulysses: What proof have we that this thy word is true? Andromache: May thy proud victor's strongest threat befall, And bring my death with quick and easy stroke; May I be buried in my native soil, May earth press lightly on my Hector's bones: According as my son, deprived of light, Amidst the dead doth lie, and, to the tomb Consigned, hath known the funeral honors due To those who live no more. Ulysses [joyfully]: Then are the fates Indeed fulfilled, since Hector's son is dead, And I with joy unto the Greeks will go, With grateful tale of peace at last secure.