_Hecuba:_ Then, trusty comrades of our fate, Unbind your tresses and let them flow Over your shoulders bent with grief, The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust 85 Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms, Strip from your breasts their covering; Why veil your beauty? Shame itself 90 Is held in captive bonds. And now Let your hands wave free to the quickening blows That resound to your wailings. So, now are ye ready, And thus it is well. I behold once more My old-time Trojan band. Now stoop And fill your hands; 'tis right to take Her dust at least from fallen Troy. Now let the long-pent grief leap forth, 95 And surpass your accustomed bounds of woe. _Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep._ _Chorus:_ Our hair, in many a funeral torn, 100 We loose; and o'er our streaming locks Troy's glowing ashes lie bestrewn. From our shoulders the veiling garments fall, 105 And our breasts invite the smiting hands. Now, now, O grief, put forth thy strength. Let the distant shores resound with our mournings; And let Echo who dwells in the slopes of the mountains Repeat all our wailings, not, after her wont, 110 With curt iteration returning the end. Let earth hear and heed; let the sea and the sky Record all our grief. Then smite, O ye hands, With the strength of frenzy batter and bruise. With crying and blows and the pain of the smiting-- 115 _Oh, weep for Hector, wail and weep_. _Hecuba:_ Our hero, for thee the blows are descending, On arms and shoulders that stream with our blood; For thee our brows endure rough strokes, And our breasts are mangled with pitiless hands. 120 Now flow the old wounds, reopened anew, That bled at thy death, the chief cause of our sorrow. O prop of our country, delayer of fate, Our Ilium's bulwark, our mighty defender, 125 Our strong tower wast thou; secure on thy shoulders, Our city stood leaning through ten weary years. By thy power supported, with thee has she fallen, Our country and Hector united in doom. Now turn to another the tide of your mourning; 130 Let Priam receive his due meed of your tears. _Chorus:_ Receive our lamentings, O Phrygia's ruler; We weep for thy death, who wast twice overcome. Naught once did Troy suffer while thou didst rule o'er her: Twice fell her proud walls from the blows of the Grecians, 135 And twice was she pierced by great Hercules' darts. Now all of our Hecuba's offspring have perished, And the proud band of kings who came to our aid; Thy death is the last--our father, our ruler-- Struck down as a victim to Jove the Almighty, 140 All helpless and lone, a mute corpse on the ground.