Even the "rugged Pyrrhus" is touched with pity, pauses, and at last reluctantly,
"Deep in her bosom plunged the shining steel.
Her life-blood gushed in streams: yet e'en in death,
Studious of modesty, her beauteous limbs
She covered with her robe."
THE TROJAN WOMEN.
The action of this play takes place a few days before that of the "Hecuba." It is not, properly speaking, a drama, for it has scarcely any fable. "It is," says Dean Milman, "a series of pathetic speeches and exquisite odes on the fall of Troy. What can be more admirable, in the midst of all these speeches of woe and sorrow, than the wild outburst of Cassandra into a bridal song, instead of, as Shakespeare describes her, 'shrilling her dolours forth'!"
"A light! a light! rise up, be swift:
I seize, I worship, and I lift
The bridal torches' festal rays,
Till all the burning fane's ablaze!
Hymen, Hymenœan king!
Look there! look there! what blessings wait
Upon the bridegroom's nuptial state!
And I, how blest, who proudly ride
Through Argos' streets, a queenly bride!
Go thou, my mother! go!
With many a gushing tear
And frantic shriek of woe.
