Then Teucer clasping him was minded too To rush on bitter doom: howbeit the rest Held from the sword his hand. Anguished he fell Upon the dead, outpouring many a tear More comfortlessly than the orphan babe That wails beside the hearth, with ashes strewn On head and shoulders, wails bereavement's day That brings death to the mother who hath nursed The fatherless child; so wailed he, ever wailed His great death-stricken brother, creeping slow Around the corpse, and uttering his lament: "O Aias, mighty-souled, why was thine heart Distraught, that thou shouldst deal unto thyself Murder and bale? All, was it that the sons Of Troy might win a breathing-space from woes, Might come and slay the Greeks, now thou art not? From these shall all the olden courage fail When fast they fall in fight. Their shield from harm Is broken now! For me, I have no will To see mine home again, now thou art dead. Nay, but I long here also now to die, That so the earth may shroud me--me and thee Not for my parents so much do I care, If haply yet they live, if haply yet Spared from the grave, in Salamis they dwell, As for thee, O my glory and my crown!" So cried he groaning sore; with answering moan Queenly Tecmessa wailed, the princess-bride Of noble Aias, captive of his spear, Yet ta'en by him to wife, and household-queen O'er all his substance, even all that wives Won with a bride-price rule for wedded lords. Clasped in his mighty arms, she bare to him A son Eurysaces, in all things like Unto his father, far as babe might be Yet cradled in his tent. With bitter moan Fell she on that dear corpse, all her fair form Close-shrouded in her veil, and dust-defiled, And from her anguished heart cried piteously: "Alas for me, for me now thou art dead, Not by the hands of foes in fight struck down, But by thine own! On me is come a grief Ever-abiding! Never had I looked To see thy woeful death-day here by Troy. Ah, visions shattered by rude hands of Fate! Oh that the earth had yawned wide for my grave Ere I beheld thy bitter doom! On me No sharper, more heart-piercing pang hath come-- No, not when first from fatherland afar And parents thou didst bear me, wailing sore Mid other captives, when the day of bondage Had come on me, a princess theretofore. Not for that dear lost home so much I grieve, Nor for my parents dead, as now for thee: For all thine heart was kindness unto me The hapless, and thou madest me thy wife, One soul with thee; yea, and thou promisedst To throne me queen of fair-towered Salamis, When home we won from Troy. The Gods denied Accomplishment thereof. And thou hast passed Unto the Unseen Land: thou hast forgot Me and thy child, who never shall make glad His father's heart, shall never mount thy throne. But him shall strangers make a wretched thrall: For when the father is no more, the babe Is ward of meaner men.