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.

  1. are eager to set sail from Troy for home; and, when you have accomplished all that you must do, you shall return with your children to the place where you have lodged my son. Hecuba leads Polymestor and his children into the tent.
Chorus
  1. Not yet have you paid the penalty, but perhaps you will.
Chorus
  1. Like one who slips and falls into the surge with no haven near, so shall you lose your own life for the life you have taken. For where liability to justice coincides with heaven’s law;
  2. there is ruin full of death and doom. Your hopes of this journey shall cheat you, for it has led you, unhappy wretch! to the halls of death; and to no warrior’s hand shall you resign your life.
Polymestor
  1. O horror! I am blinded of the light of my eyes, ah me!
Chorus Leader
  1. Did you hear, friends, that Thracian’s cry of woe?
Polymestor
  1. O horror! horror! my children! 0 the cruel blow.
Chorus Leader
  1. Friends, there is strange mischief afoot in yo.
Polymestor
  1. No, you shall never escape for all your hurried flight;
  2. for with a blow I will burst open the inmost recesses of this building.