The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.. Euripides

learned it by the rule of virtue. And this indeed has my mind been ejaculating in vain. But do thou go, and signify these things to the Greeks, that no one be suffered to touch my daughter, but bid them keep off the multitude. In so vast an army the rabble are riotous, and the sailors' uncontrolled insolence is fiercer than fire; and he is evil, who does not evil. But do thou, my old attendant, taking an urn, fill it with sea water, and bring it hither, that I may wash my girl in her last bath, the bride no bride now, and the virgin no longer a virgin, wash her, and lay her out; according to her merits – whence can I? This I can not; but as I can, I will, for what can I do! And collecting ornaments from among the captured women, who dwell beside me in these tents, if any one, unobserved by our new lords, has by her any stolen memorial of her home. O state of my house, O mansions once happy! O Priam, of vast wealth possessed, and supremely blest in thine offspring, and I too, this aged woman, the mother of such children! How have we come to nothing, bereft of our former grandeur! And yet still forsooth we are elated, one of us in his gorgeous palaces; another, when honored among his citizens. These are nothing. In vain the counsels of the mind, and the tongue's boast. He is most blest, to whom from day to day no evil happens.

      CHORUS

      Against me was it fated that calamity, against me was it fated that woe should spring, when Paris first hewed the pine in Ida's forest, preparing to cut his way over the ocean surge to the bed of Helen, the fairest that the sun's golden beams shine upon. For toils, and fate more stern than toils, close us round: and from the folly of one came a public calamity fatal to the land of Simois, and woes springing from other woes: and when the dispute was decided, which the shepherd decided between the three daughters of the blessed Gods on Ida's top, for war, and slaughter, and the desolation of my palaces. And many a Spartan virgin at her home on the banks of the fair-flowing Eurotas sighs while bathed in tears: and many an aged matron strikes her hand against her hoary head, for her children who have perished, and tears her cheek making her nails all blood-stained with her wounds.

      FEMALE ATTENDANT, CHORUS, HECUBA

      ATT. O attendants, where, I pray, is the all-wretched Hecuba, who surpasses the whole race of man and woman kind in calamities? no one shall wrest from her the crown.

      CHOR. But what dost thou want, O wretch, in thy words of ill omen? for thy messages of woe never rest.

      ATT. I bring this grief to Hecuba; but in calamity 'tis no easy thing for men to speak words of good import.

      CHOR. And see, she is coming out of the house, and appears in the right time for thy words.

      ATT. O all-wretched mistress, and yet still more wretched than I can express in words, thou art undone, and no longer beholdest the light, childless, husbandless, cityless, entirely destroyed.

      HEC. Thou has said nothing new, but hast reproached me who already know it: but why dost thou bring this corse of my Polyxena, whose sepulture was reported to me as in a state of active progress through the labors of all the Grecians?

      ATT. She nothing knows, but, woe's me! laments Polyxena, nor does she apprehend her new misfortunes.

      HEC. O wretched me! dost bring hither the body of the frantic and inspired Cassandra?

      ATT. She whom thou mentionedst, lives; but thou dost not weep for him who is dead; but behold this corse cast naked [on the shore,] and look if it will appear to thee a wonder, and what thou little expectest.

      HEC. Alas me! I do indeed see my son Polydore a corse, whom (I fondly hoped) the man of Thrace was preserving in his palace. Now am I lost indeed, I no longer exist. Oh my child, my child! Alas! I begin the Bacchic strain, having lately learned my woes from my evil genius.

      ATT. Thou knowest then the calamity of thy son, O most unfortunate.

      HEC. I see incredible evils, still fresh, still fresh: and my immeasurable woes follow one upon the other. No longer will a day without a tear, without a groan, have part with me.

      CHOR. Dreadful, oh! dreadful are the miseries that we endure!

      HEC. O child, child of a wretched mother, by what fate art thou dead, by what hap liest thou here? by the hand of what man?

      ATT. I know not: on the wave-washed shore I found him.

      HEC. Cast up from the sea, or fallen by the blood-stained spear? (Note19.)

      ATT. The ocean's billow cast him up from the deep on the smooth sand.

      HEC. Woe is me! Now understand I the dream, the vision of mine eyes; the black-winged phantom has not flitted by me in vain, which I saw concerning thee, my child, as being no longer in the light of day.

      CHOR. But who slew him? canst thou, O skilled in dreams, declare him?

      HEC. My friend, my friend, who curbs the steed in Thrace, where his aged father placed him for concealment.

      CHOR. Ah me! what wilt thou say? Was it to possess his gold that he slew him!

      HEC. Unutterable deeds, unworthy of a name, surpassing miracles, unhallowed, insufferable! Where are the laws of hospitality? O most accurst of men, how didst thou mar that skin, how sever with the cruel sword the poor limbs of this boy, nor didst feel pity?

      CHOR. O hapless woman, how has the deity made thee by far the most wretched of mortals, whoever he be that presses heavy on thee! But, my friends, let us henceforward be silent, for I see our lord Agamemnon advancing.

      AGAMEMNON, CHORUS, HECUBA

      AGA. Why, Hecuba, delayest thou to come, and bury thy girl in her tomb, agreeably to what Talthybius told me, that no one of the Argives should be suffered to touch thy daughter. For our part we leave her alone, and touch her not; but thou art slow, whereat I am astonished. I am come therefore to fetch thee, for every thing there has been well and duly performed, if aught of well there be in this. Ah! what corse is this I see before the tent? some Trojan's too? for that it is no Grecian's, the robes that vest his limbs inform me.

      HEC. (aside) Thou ill-starr'd wretch! myself I mean, when I say "thou." O Hecuba, what shall I do? Shall I fall at the knees of Agamemnon here, or bear my ills in silence?

      AGA. Why dost lament turning thy back upon me, and sayest not what has happened? Who is this?

      HEC. (aside) But should he, thinking me a slave, an enemy, spurn me from his knees, I should be adding to my present sufferings.

      AGA. No prophet I, so as to trace, unless by hearing, the path of thy counsels.

      HEC. (aside) Am I not rather then putting an evil construction on this man's thoughts, whereas he has no evil intention toward me?

      AGA. If thou art willing that I should nothing of this affair, thou art of a mind with me, for neither do I wish to hear.

      HEC. (aside) I can not without him take vengeance for my children. Why do I thus hesitate? I must be bold, whether I succeed, or fail. Agamemnon, by these knees, and by thy beard I implore thee, and by thy blessed hand —

      AGA. What thy request? Is it to pass thy life in freedom? for this is easy for thee to obtain.

      HEC. Not this indeed; but so that I avenge myself on the bad, I am willing to pass my whole life in slavery.

      AGA. And for what assistance dost thou call on me?

      HEC. In none of those things which thou imaginest, O king. Seest thou this corse, o'er which I drop the tear?

      AGA. I see it; thy meaning however I can not learn from this.

      HEC. Him did I once bring forth, him bore I in my bosom.

      AGA. Is this indeed one of thy children, O unhappy woman?

      HEC. It is, but not of the sons of Priam who fell under the walls of Troy.

      AGA. Didst thou then bear any other besides those, O lady?

      HEC. In vain, as it appears, this whom you see.

      AGA. But where did he chance to be, when the city fell?

      HEC. His father sent him out of the country, dreading his death.

      AGA.