The Trojan Women
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.
- Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and you the cause, my mighty prince in days now passed!
- About 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.
- Alas! alas! you, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, you mother!
- Alas!
- Wail for the dead.
- Woe is me!
- Woe indeed for your unending sorrow!
- Your 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.
- Smite, oh smite upon your head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!
- My kind, good friends—
- Speak out, Hecuba, the word that was on your lips.
- It 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.
- Alas! 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.
- You 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,