From my sad mother, I should die content.
Oh! could I but conceal this dire event
Yet should she not with tears my death deplore,
Since her own wretched life demands them more. But let not the rude touch of man pollute
A virgin victim; 'tis a modest suit.
It best will please, whoe'er demands my blood,
That I untainted reach the Stygian flood.
Yet let one short, last, dying prayer be heard,
To Priam's daughter pay this last regard;
"Tis Priam's daughter, not a captive, sues;
Do not the rites of sepulture refuse.
To my afflicted mother, I implore,
Free without ransom my dead corse restore :
Nor barter me for gain, when I am cold:
But be her tears the price if I am sold :
Time was she could have ransom'd me with gold."
Thus as she pray'd, one common shower of tears
Burst forth, and stream'd from every eye but hers.
Ev'n the priest wept, and with a rude remorse
Plunged in her heart the steel's resistless force.
Her slacken'd limbs sunk gently to the ground,
Dauntless her looks, unalter'd by the wound.
And as she fell, she strove with decent pride
To guard what modest women care to hide.
The Trojan matrons the pale corse receive,
And the whole slaughter'd race of Priam grieve.
Sad they recount the long disastrous tale,
Then with fresh tears, thee, royal maid, bewail;
Thy widow'd mother too, who flourish'd late
The royal pride of Asia's happier state:
A captive lot now to Ulysses born,
Whom yet the victor would reject with scorn,
Were she not Hector's mother: Hector's fame
Scarce can a master for his mother claim!
With striet embrace the lifeless corse she view'd;
And her fresh grief that flood of tears renew'd,
With which she lately mourn'd so many dead;
Tears for her country, sons, and husband shed. 725
With the thick-gushing stream she bathed the wound;
Kiss'd her pale lips; then weltering on the ground,
With wanton rage her frantic bosom tore,
Sweeping her hair amid the clotted gore;
While her sad accents thus her loss deplore:
"Behold a mother's last dear pledge of wo! 735
Yes, 'tis the last I have to suffer now.
Thou, my Polyxena, my ills must crown:
Already in thy fate I feel my own.
"Tis thus, lest haply of my numerous seed
One should unslaughter'd fall, even thou must bleed:
And yet I hoped thy sex had been thy guard :
But neither has thy tender sex been spared.
The same Achilles, by whose deadly hate
Thy brothers fell, urged thy untimely fate!
The same Achilles, whose destructive rage
Laid waste my realms, has robb'd my childless age.
When Paris' shafts with Phoebus' certain aid
At length had pierced this dreadful chief, I said,
Secure of future ills, he can no more :'
But see, he still pursues me as before.
With rage rekindled his dead ashes burn;
And his yet murdering ghost my wretched home
This tyrant's lust of slaughter I have fed
With large supplies from my too fruitful bed.
Troy's towers lie waste; and the wide ruin ends
The public wo; but me fresh wo attends.
Troy still survives to me; to none but me;
And from its ills I never must be free.
I who so late had power, and wealth, and ease,
Bless'd with my husband, and a large increase, 760 Must now in poverty an exile mourn;
Ev'n from the tombs of my dead offspring torn:
Given to Penelope, who, proud of spoil,
Allots me to the loom's ungrateful toil;
Points to her dames, and cries, with scorning mien, 'See Hector's mother, and great Priam's queen!':
And thou, my child, sole hope of all that's lost,
Thou now art slain, to soothe this hostile ghost.
Yes, my child falls an offering to my foe !
Then what am I, who still survive this wo?
Say, cruel gods! for what new scenes of death
Must a poor aged wretch prolong this hated breath?
Troy fallen, to whom could Priam happy seem?
Yet was he so; and happy must I deem
His death; for, oh, my child! he saw not thine, 775
When he his life did with his Troy resign.
Yet sure due obsequies thy tomb might grace;
And thou shalt sleep amid thy kingly race.
Alas, my child! such fortune does not wait
Our suffering house in this abandon'd state.
A foreign grave, and thy poor mother's tears,
Are all the honours that attend thy hearse.
All now is lost! Yet no; one comfort more
Of life remains, my much-loved Polydore,
My youngest hope. Here on this coast he lives, 785
Nursed by the guardian king, he still survives.
Then let me hasten to the cleansing flood,
And wash away these stains of guiltless blood."
Straight to the shore her feeble steps repair
With limping pace, and torn dishevell❜d hair,
Silver'd with age. "Give me an urn," she cried,
"To bear back water from this swelling tide:"
When on the banks her son in ghastly hue
Transfix'd with Thracian arrows strikes her view.
The matrons shriek'd; her big swoln grief surpass'd
The power of utterance; she stood aghast;
She had nor speech, nor tears to give relief:
Excess of wo suppress'd the rising grief.
Lifeless as stone, on earth she fix'd her eyes,
And then look'd up to heaven with wild surprise.
Now she contemplates o'er with sad delight
Her son's pale visage; then her aching sight
Dwells on his wounds: she varies thus by turns,
'Till with collected rage at length she burns,
Wild as the mother lion, when among
The haunts of prey she seeks her ravish'd young.
Swift flies the ravisher; she marks his trace,
And by the print directs her anxious chase.
So Hecuba with mingled grief and rage
Pursues the king, regardless of her age.
She greets the murderer, with dissembled joy
Of secret treasure hoarded for her boy.
The specious tale the unwary king betray'd.
Fired with the hopes of prey, "Give quick," he
said,
With soft enticing speech," the promised store:
Whate'er you give, you give to Polydore.
Your son, by the immortal gods I swear,
Shall this with all your former bounty share.”
She stands attentive to his soothing lies,
And darts avenging horror from her eyes;
Then full resentment fires her boiling blood:
She springs upon him, mid the captive crowd:
(Her thirst of vengeance want of strength supplies :)
Fastens her forky fingers in his eyes;
Tears out the rooted balls; her rage pursues,
And in the hollow orbs her hand imbrues.
The Thracians, fired at this inhuman scene,
With darts and stones assail the frantic queen.
She snarls and growls, nor in a human tone;
Then bites impatient at the bounding stone;
Extends her jaws, as she her voice would raise
To keen invectives in her wonted phrase;
But barks, and thence the yelping brute betrays.
Still a sad monument the place remains,
And from this monstrous change its name obtains:
Where she, in long remembrance of her ills,
With plaintive howlings the wide desert fills.
Greeks, Trojans, friends and foes, and gods above,
Her numerous wrongs to just compassion move.
Ev'n Juno's self forgets her ancient hate,
And owns she had deserved a milder fate.
FUNERAL OF MEMNON.
MEMNON, the son of Aurora, is killed by Achilles at the siege of Troy-In honour of his memory, and in compliance with the prayers of his mother, Jupiter causes birds, called Memnonides, to spring from his ashes, who divide into two parties, and contend with mutual acrimony.
YET bright Aurora, partial as she was
To Troy, and those that loved the Trojan cause,
Nor Troy nor Hecuba can now bemoan,
But weeps a sad misfortune, more her own.
Her offspring Memnon, by Achilles slain,
She saw extended on the Phrygian plain :
She saw, and straight the purple beams, that grace The rosy morning, vanish'd from her face;
A deadly pale her wonted bloom invades,
And veils the lowering skies with mournful shades.
But when his limbs upon the pile were laid,
The last kind duty that by friends is paid,
His mother to the skies directs her flight,
Nor could sustain to view the doleful sight:
But frantic, with her loose neglected hair,
Hastens to Jove, and falls a suppliant there.
"Oh king of heaven, oh father of the skies,"
The weeping goddess passionately cries;
"Though I the meanest of immortals am,
And fewest temples celebrate my fame,
Yet still a goddess, I presume to come
Within the verge of your ethereal dome ;
Yet still may plead some merit, if my light
With purple dawn controls the powers of night; 865
If from a female hand that virtue springs,
Which to the gods and men such pleasure brings.
Yet I nor honours seek, nor rites divine,
Nor for more altars or more fanes repine;
Oh that such trifles were the only cause
From whence Aurora's mind its anguish draws!
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