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. the burial of Polyxena lately slain, so that brother and sister may be laid on the same pyre and buried side by side, a double cause of sorrow to their mother.
Agamemnon
  1. So shall it be; yet if the army were able to sail, I could not have granted you this favor;
  2. but as it is, for the god sends forth no favoring breeze, the army must wait and look for a calm voyage. Good luck to you, for this is the interest alike of individual and state, that the wrong-doer be punished and the good man prosper. Agamemnon departs as Hecuba withdraws into the tent.
Chorus
  1. No more, my native Ilium, shall you be counted among the towns never sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wasting you with the spear;
  2. you are shorn of your crown of towers, and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall I tread your streets.
Chorus
  1. It was in the middle of the night my ruin came,
  2. in the hour when sleep steals sweetly over the eyes after the feast is done. After the music and dancing, my husband had brought the sacrifice to an end and was lying in our bridal-chamber,
  3. his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores.
Chorus
  1. And I was braiding my tresses beneath a tight-drawn head-band
  2. before my golden mirror’s countless rays, so that I might lie down to rest; when through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy: You