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.