the burial of Polyxena lately slain, so that brother and sister may be laid on the same pyre and buried side by side, a double cause of sorrow to their mother.AgamemnonSo shall it be; yet if the army were able to sail, I could not have granted you this favor;but as it is, for the god sends forth no favoring breeze, the army must wait and look for a calm voyage. Good luck to you, for this is the interest alike of individual and state, that the wrong-doer be punished and the good man prosper. Agamemnon departs as Hecuba withdraws into the tent.
ChorusNo more, my native Ilium, shall you be counted among the towns never sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wasting you with the spear;you are shorn of your crown of towers, and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall I tread your streets. ChorusIt was in the middle of the night my ruin came,in the hour when sleep steals sweetly over the eyes after the feast is done. After the music and dancing, my husband had brought the sacrifice to an end and was lying in our bridal-chamber,his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores.
ChorusAnd I was braiding my tresses beneath a tight-drawn head-band before my golden mirror’s countless rays, so that I might lie down to rest; when through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy: You
sons of Hellas, when, oh! when will you sack the citadel of Ilium, and seek your homes?
ChorusI left my bed, wearing only a tunic, like a Dorian girl,and sought in vain, ah me! to station myself at the holy hearth of Artemis; for, after seeing my husband slain, I was led away over the broad sea; with many a backward look at my city,when the ship began her homeward voyage and parted me from Ilium’s strand; till alas! for very grief I fainted, ChorusCursing Helen the sister of the Dioscuri, and Paris the baleful shepherd of Ida;for it was their marriage, which was no marriage but misery sent by some demon, that robbed me of my country and drove me from my home.Oh! may the sea’s salt flood never carry her home again; and may she never set foot in her father’s halls!