Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HECUBA: TROY, by EURIPIDES Poet's Biography First Line: My fatherland, o my troy! Last Line: Home, to her father's country. Subject(s): Troy | ||||||||
My fatherland, O my Troy! None shall hail thee now, the impregnable city, Shrouded, compassed round by the host of Hellas, By the spear of the spoiler. They have shorn from thy brow the beauty, Thy towers. We have seen thy ways Ravaged, smirched by the smoke of ruin, Alas! Ways that are mine no longer. In the night was my sorrow born, When the feast was done, at the hour when the weary Turn to sleep. Ah sweet! when the song and the dancing And the worship were over, And my lord in the bower was waiting; His spear on the wall, at rest; No more watch at the ships, no longer Trampling feet in the Trojan city; And I in ribands and laces caught And twined the tresses of my hair, And read the dim glad secret The haze of my mirror told, Of a bride and a happy lover, waiting . . . A stir in the city, and a noise, A shout that rang in the streets of Troy, Crying 'Up, Sons of Grecian sires, it is time, it is time! Will ye not ravage and sack Troy's tower and turn you homeward?' I left the bed of my lord, I ran, In the shift of a Dorian maid, ungirt; I sought thy shrine, in vain; Goddess, Artemis! All in vain! For they took me, they slew my lord, I saw him, My lord, and they dragged me to the sea Still gazing back to Troy. . . . The ship Homeward bound Strained her tackling eagerly, bearing me on Far from the land of my love, Ah grief! my spirit left me, And, fainting, cried my curse upon Helen, my curse on fatal Paris -- Herdsman of Ida, and sister of the sons of Zeus. Torn from that ruined fatherland, Outcast from home, I curse her, the bride who was not a bride, but a fiend, a fury, And pray that the waves of the sea may not carry her again safe home, Never more Home, to her father's country. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HELEN OF TROY DOES COUNTER DANCING by MARGARET ATWOOD DESTROYING BEAUTY by CHARLES BUKOWSKI WHAT LIGHT DESTROYS by ANDREW HUDGINS A MOTEL IN TROY, NEW YORK by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN A MAN NAMED TROY by REGINALD SHEPHERD LETTER TO GOD FROM ETHAN AMOS BOYD, TROY, NY, 1929 by ANNE STEVENSON A MOMENT IN TROY by WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA HELEN OF TROY by SARA TEASDALE AEOLUS: THE OLD MEN by EURIPIDES |
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