Book 13
with her, in secret, to the spot she chose.
494
Then craftily he said in his bland way:
“Oh, Hecuba, you need not wait, give now,
munificently to your son—and all
you give, and all that you have given,
by the good gods, I swear, shall be his own.”
She eyed him sternly as he spoke
and swore so falsely.—Then her rage boiled over,
and, seconded by all her captive train,
she flew at him and drove her fingers deep
in his perfidious eyes; and tore them from
his face—and plunged her hands into the raw
and bleeding sockets (passion made her strong),
defiled with his bad blood. How could she tear
his eyes, gone from their seats? She wildly gouged
the sightless sockets of his bleeding face!
The Thracians, angered by such violence done
upon their king, immediately attacked
the Trojan matron with their stones and darts
but she with hoarse growling and snapping jaws
sprang at the stones, and, when she tried to speak,
she barked like a fierce dog. The place still bears
a name suggested by her hideous change.
And she, long mindful! of her old time woe,
ran howling dismally in Thracian fields.
Her sad fate moved the Trojans and the Greeks,
her friends and foes, and all the heavenly gods.
Yes all, for even the sister-wife of Jove
denied that Hecuba deserved such fate.
Although Aurora had given aid to Troy,
576
she had no heart nor leisure to be moved
by fall of Troy or fate of Hecuba.
At home she bore a greater grief and care;
her loss of Memnon is afflicting her.
Aurora, his rose-tinted mother, saw
him perish by Achilles' deadly spear,
upon the Phrygian plain. She saw his death,
and the loved rose that lights the dawning hour
turned death-pale, and the sky was veiled in clouds.
The parent could not bear to see his limbs
