Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/378

360 That this my child is still in life, perchance To be the avenger of his father's death. But both I cannot spare. What then? O soul, Save of the two, whom most the Greeks do fear. Ulysses [aside]: Now must I force her answer. [To Andromache.] From its base Will I this tomb destroy. Andromache: The tomb of him Whose body thou didst ransom for a price? Ulysses: I will destroy it, and the sepulcher From its high mound will utterly remove. Andromache: The sacred faith of heaven do I invoke, And just Achilles' plighted word: do thou, Pyrrhus, keep thy father's sacred oath. Ulysses: This tomb shall soon lie level with the plain. Andromache: Such sacrilege the Greeks, though impious, Have never dared. 'Tis true the sacred fanes, E'en of your favoring gods, ye have defiled; But still your wildest rage hath spared our tombs. I will resist, and match your warriors' arms With my weak woman's hands. Despairing wrath Will nerve my arm. Like that fierce Amazon, Who wrought dire havoc in the Grecian ranks; Or some wild Maenad by the god o'ercome, Who, thrysus-armed, doth roam the trackless glades With frenzied step, and, clean of sense bereft, Strikes deadly blows but feels no counter-stroke: So will I rush against ye in defense Of Hector's tomb, and perish, if I must, An ally of his shade. Ulysses [to attendants]: Do ye delay, And do a woman's tears and empty threats And outcry move you? Speed the task I bid. Andromache [struggling with attendants]: Destroy me first! Oh, take my life instead! [The attendants roughly thrust her away.] Alas, they thrust me back! Hector, come, Break through the bands of fate, upheave the earth,