Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and you the cause, my mighty prince in days now passed!HecubaAbout your body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honor, which should have clad you on your marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of Asia’s daughters. You too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent of countless triumphs past, accept your crown, for though you share the dead child’s tomb, death cannot touch you; for you merit honors far beyond those arms the arms of Achilles, which were set up as a prize, and won by Odysseus from Aias.that the crafty villain Odysseus won. ChorusAlas! alas! you, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, you mother!HecubaAlas!ChorusWail for the dead.HecubaWoe is me!ChorusWoe indeed for your unending sorrow!HecubaYour wounds in part I will bind up with bandages, a wretched healer in name alone, without reality; but for the rest your father must look to that among the dead.ChorusSmite, oh smite upon your head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!HecubaMy kind, good friends—ChorusSpeak out, Hecuba, the word that was on your lips.
HecubaIt seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. But if the god had not caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong beneath the earth, we should have been unheard of, and not ever sung in Muses’ songs, furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I think it makes little difference to the dead, if they get a gorgeous funeral; but this is a cause of idle pride to the living. The corpse is carried off to burial. Chorus LeaderAlas! for your unhappy mother, who over your corpse has closed the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most happy in your lot, ah! what a tragic death is yours! Ha! who are those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming torches in their hands? Some new calamity wiII soon alight on Troy.Soldiers are seen on the battlements of Troy, torch in hand.TalthybiusYou captains whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam, to you I speak. No longer keep the fire-brand idle in your hands, but launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy. And you, you sons of Troy, to let my orders take at once a double form—start for the Achaean ships for your departure from the land, as soon as the leaders of the army blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And you, unhappy grey-haired lady,