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. So will my mother see two children dead at once, me and that ill-fated maid. For I, to win a grave, ah me! will appear among the rippling waves before her servant-maid’s feet. Yes! I have begged this from the powers below,
  2. to find a tomb and fall into my mother’s hands. So shall I have my heart’s desire; but now I will get out of the way of aged Hecuba, for here she passes on her way from the shelter of Agamemnon’s tent, terrified at my spectre.
  3. Alas! O mother, from a palace to face a life of slavery, how sad your lot, as sad as once it was blessed! Some god is now destroying you, setting this in the balance to outweigh your former bliss.
The Ghost vanishes. Hecuba enters from the tent of Agamemnon, supported by her attendants, captive Trojan women.
Hecuba
  1. Guide these aged steps, my servants, forth before the house;
  2. guide and support your fellow-slave, once your queen, you maids of Troy. Grasp my aged hand, take me, support me, guide me, lift me up;
  3. and I will lean upon your bent arm as on a staff and quicken my halting footsteps onwards. O dazzling light of Zeus! O gloom of night! why am I thus scared by
  4. fearful visions of the night? O lady Earth, mother of dreams that fly on sable wings! I am seeking to avert the vision of the night, the sight of horror which I learned from my dreams
  5. about my son, who is safe in Thrace, and Polyxena, my dear daughter. You gods of this land! preserve my son,
  6. the last and only anchor of my house, now settled in Thrace, the land of snow, safe in the keeping of his father’s friend. Some fresh disaster is in store, a new strain of sorrow will be added to our woe.
  7. Such ceaseless thrills of terror never wrung my heart before. Oh! where, you Trojan maidens, can I find inspired Helenus or Cassandra, that they may read me my dream?