Dramatis Personae

Poseidon

Athena

Hecuba

Chorus

Talthybius

Cassandra

Andromache

Menelaus

Helen

PoseidonFrom the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, have come, where choirs of Nereids dance in a graceful maze; for since the day that Phoebus and I with exact measurement set towers of stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart has passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is smouldering and overthrown, a prey to Argive might. For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed army, and sent it within the battlements, a deadly statue;~~from which in days to come men shall tell of the Wooden Horse, with its hidden load of warriors.~~ Groves stand forsaken and temples of the gods run down with blood, and at the altar’s very base, before the god who watched his home, Priam lies dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold and Phrygian spoils are being conveyed, and they who came against this town, those sons of Hellas, only wait a favoring breeze to follow in their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena, who helped to ruin Phrygia, I am leaving Ilium, that famous town, and my altars; for when dreary desolation seizes on a town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect. Scamander’s banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids, as they by lot receive their masters. Arcadia takes some, and some the people of Thessaly; others are assigned to Theseus’ sons, the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan women as are not portioned out are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the army; and with them Spartan Helen,