HECUBA.
207
Polyxena.
What word of ill-boding is thine? From thy preluding ills I divine.
Hecuba.
Ah me, life doomed unto slaughter!
Polyxena.
Tell it out, tell it out, neither hide o'erlong;
For mine heart, my mother, is heavy with dread
For the tidings that come in thy moan.
Hecuba.
O child, O child of the grief-distraught!
Polyxena.
Ah, what is the message to me thou has brought?
Hecuba.
Death: for the Argive warrior-throng
Are in one mind set, that thy blood be shed190
On the grave of Peleus' son.
Polyxena.
Ah me, my mother, how can thy tongue
Speak out the horror?—Let all be said:
O mother mine, say on.
Hecuba.
O child, I have heard it, the shame and the wrong,
Of the Argive vote, of the doom forth sped,
Of the hope of thy life gone—gone!
