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.
- Woe and tribulation
- were made my lot in life, when Alexander first cut his beams of pine in Ida’s woods, to sail across the heaving sea
- in quest of Helen’s bed, loveliest woman on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.
- For here begins trouble’s cycle,
- and, worse than that, relentless fate; and from one man’s folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. The strife the shepherd decided
- on Ida, between three daughters of the blessed gods,
- brought as its result war and bloodshed and the ruin of my home;
- and many a Spartan maiden too is weeping bitter tears in her halls on the banks of fair Eurotas, and many a mother whose sons are slain,
- is smiting her gray head and tearing her cheeks, making her nails bloody in the furrowed gash.
- Oh! ladies, where is Hecuba, our queen of sorrow, who conquers all in tribulation, men and women both alike?
- No one shall dispute the crown with her.
- What now, unhappy one with your cry of misery? Your evil tidings never seem to rest.
- It is to Hecuba I bring my bitter news; no easy task is it for mortal lips to speak smooth words in sorrow.
- Look, she is coming even now from the shelter of the tent, appearing just in time to hear you speak. Hecuba comes out of the tent.
- O mistress, most hapless beyond all words of mine to tell; you are ruined, you no longer exist, though you are alive; of children, husband, city bereft; hopelessly undone!
- This is no news but insult; I have heard it all before. But why have you come, bringing here to me the corpse of Polyxena, on whose burial Achaea’s army was reported to be busily engaged?
- She knows nothing, but mourns
- Polyxena, not grasping her new sorrows.
- Ah! woe is me! you are surely not bringing here frenzied Cassandra, the prophetic maid?
- You speak of the living; but the dead you do not weep is here. Uncovering the corpse Mark well the body now laid bare;