Hecuba

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.

  1. He should have demanded Helen as a victim at his tomb, for she it was that proved his ruin, bringing him to Troy; or if some captive of surpassing beauty was to be singled out for death, this did not point to us; for the daughter of Tyndareus was fairest of all,
  2. and her injury to him was proved no less than ours. Against the justice of his plea I pit this argument. Now hear the recompense due from you to me at my request. On your own confession, you fell at my feet and embraced my hand and aged cheek;
  3. I in my turn now do the same to you, and claim the favor then bestowed; and I implore you, do not tear my child from my arms or slay her; there are dead enough. In her I take delight and forget my sorrows;
  4. she is my comfort in place of many a loss, my city and my nurse, my staff and journey’s guide. It is not right that those in power should use it out of season, or, when prosperous, suppose they will be always so. For I also was prosperous once, but now my life is lived,
  5. and one day robbed me of all my bliss. Friend, by your beard, have some regard and pity for me; go to Achaea’s army, and talk them over, saying how hateful a thing it is to slay women whom at first you spared out of pity,
  6. after dragging them from the altars. For among you the same law holds good for slave and free alike respecting bloodshed; such a reputation as yours will persuade them even though its words are weak; for the same argument, when proceeding from those of no account,
  7. has not the same force as when it is uttered by men of mark.
Chorus Leader
  1. Human nature is not so stony-hearted as to hear your plaintive tale and catalogue of sorrows, without shedding a tear.
Odysseus
  1. O Hecuba, be schooled by me, and do not in your angry mood
  2. count him a foe who speaks wisely. Your life I am prepared to save, for the service I received; I do not say otherwise. But what I said to all, I will not now deny, that after Troy’s capture I would give your daughter to the chief man of our army
  3. because he asked a victim. For here is a source of weakness to many states, whenever a man of brave and generous soul receives no greater honor than his inferiors. Now Achilles, lady, deserves honor at our hands,
  4. since on behalf of Hellas the man died most nobly. Is not this a foul reproach to treat him as a friend in life, but, when he is gone from us, to treat him so no more? Enough! what will they say, if once more there comes a gathering of the army and a contest with the foe?
  5. Shall we fight or nurse our lives, seeing the dead have no honors? For myself, indeed, when alive, if my daily store were scant, yet it would be all-sufficient, but my tomb I should wish
  6. to be an object of respect, for this gratitude has long to run. You speak of cruel sufferings; hear my answer. Among us are grey old women and men no less miserable than you, and brides bereft of gallant husbands,
  7. over whom this Trojan dust has closed. Endure these sorrows; for us, if we are wrong in resolving to honor the brave, we shall bring upon ourselves a charge of ignorance; but as for you barbarians, do not regard your friends as such and pay no homage to your gallant dead,
  8. so that Hellas may prosper and you may reap the fruits of such policy.
Chorus Leader
  1. Alas! how cursed is slavery always in its nature, forced by the might of the stronger to endure unseemly treatment.
Hecuba
  1. Daughter, my pleading to avert your bloody death
  2. was wasted idly, hurled forth on the air; but you, if endowed with greater power than your mother, make haste to utter every pleading note like the tuneful nightingale, to save your soul from death. Throw yourself pitiably at Odysseus’ knees,
  3. and try to move him—here is your plea: he too has children—to feel pity for your sad fate.