Yes, if he lives, which I doubt; so luckless am I in every way.PolyxenaHe lives; and, when you die, he will close your eyes.HecubaI am dead; sorrow has forestalled death here.PolyxenaCome veil my head, Odysseus, and take me away; for now, before the fatal blow, my heart is melted by my mother’s wailing, and hers by mine.O light of day! for still I may call you by your name, though now my share in you is only the time I take to go between Achilles’ tomb and the sword. Odysseus and his attendants lead Polyxena away.HecubaAlas! I faint; my limbs sink under me. O my daughter, embrace your mother, stretch out your hand,give it to me; do not leave me childless! Ah, friends! it is my death-blow. Oh! to see that Spartan woman, Helen, sister of the sons of Zeus, in such a plight; for her bright eyes have caused the shameful fall of Troy’s once prosperous town. Hecuba sinks fainting to the ground.

ChorusO breeze, breeze of the sea,that wafts swift galleys, ocean’s coursers, across the surging main! Where will you bear me, the sorrowful one? To whose house shall I be brought, to be his slave and chattel?to some haven in the Dorian land, or in Phthia, where men say Apidanus, father of fairest streams, makes fat and rich the soil?