What woe must I suppress, or what declare? ~~What plaintive dirge shall I awake?~~ Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this hard pallet! O my head, my temples, my side! How I long to turn over, and lie now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends. For even this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow.

HecubaYou swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium over the deep dark sea, past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes, to the bays of Troy, alas! where you tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt, in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; who murdered Priam, the father of fifty children; the cause why I, the unhappy Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this disastrous strand. Oh that I should sit here, over against the tent of Agamemnon! As a slave I am led away from my home, an old woman, while from my head the hair is piteously shorn for grief. Ah! unhappy wives of those armored sons of Troy! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides,