is not this a sight to fill you with wonder, and upset your hopes?HecubaAh me! it is the corpse of my son Polydorus I behold, whom the Thracian man was keeping safe for me in his halls. Alas! this is the end of all; my life is over. chanting O my son, my son,alas! I now begin the laments, a frantic strain I learned just now from some avenging fiend.Maid-servantWhat! so you knew your son’s fate, poor lady?HecubaI cannot, cannot credit this fresh sight I see.chantingOne woe succeeds to another; no day will ever pass without groans and tears.Chorus LeaderAlas! poor lady, our sufferings are cruel indeed.HecubachantingO my son, child of a luckless mother,what was the manner of your death? by what fate do you lie here? by whose hands?Maid-servantI do not know. I found him on the sea-shore.HecubachantingCast up on the smooth sand, or thrown there after the murderous blow?Maid-servantThe waves had washed him ashore.
HecubachantingAlas! alas! I now know the vision I saw in my sleep; the dusky-winged phantom did not escape me, the vision I saw of you, my son, now no more within the bright sunshine.Chorus LeaderWho slew him then? Can your dream-lore tell us that?HecubachantingIt was my own familiar friend, the knight of Thrace, with whom his aged father had placed the boy in hiding.Chorus LeaderO horror! what will you say? did he slay him to get the gold?HecubachantingO dreadful crime! O deed without a name! beyond wonder!impious! intolerable! Where are the laws between guest and host? Accursed of men! how have you mangled his flesh, slashing the poor child’s limbs