Where Ilium's smouldering ruins lie,
Far off beneath the eastern sky:
"See there, my child, our Trojan ashes glow,
Where wreathing smoke in murky clouds
The distant, dim horizon shrouds;
And by that sign alone our land we know." 1055
ACT V
Messenger [entering]: Oh, cruel fate, Oh, piteous, horrible!
What sight so fell and bloody have we seen
In ten long years of war? Between thy woes,
Andromache, and thine, O Hecuba,
I halt, and know not which to weep the more.
Hecuba: Weep whosesoe'er thou wilt—thou weepest mine. 1060
While others bow beneath their single cares,
I feel the weight of all. All die to me;
Whatever grief there is, is Hecuba's.
Messenger: The maid is slain, the boy dashed from the walls.
But each has met his death with royal soul.
Andromache: Expound the deed in order, and display 1065
The twofold crime. My mighty grief is fain
To hear the gruesome narrative entire.
Begin thy tale, and tell it as it was.
Messenger: One lofty tower of fallen Troy is left,
Well known to Priam, on whose battlements
He used to sit and view his warring hosts. 1070
Here in his arms his grandson he would hold
With kind embrace, and bid the lad admire
His father's warlike deeds upon the field,
Where Hector, armed with fire and sword, pursued
The frightened Greeks. Around this lofty tower 1075
Which lately stood, the glory of the walls,
But now a lonely crag, the people pour,
A motley, curious throng of high and low.
For some, a distant hill gives open view;
While others seek a cliff, upon whose edge 1080
The crowd in tiptoed expectation stand.
The beech tree, laurel, pine, each has its load;
The whole wood bends beneath its human fruit.
