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.

With wanton rage her frantic bosom tore, Sweeping her hair amid the clotted gore; While her sad accents thus her loss deplore:

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.

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.

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;