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.
- who are leaving you behind!
- With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of you, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, or
- whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.
- My child, your wakeful heart!
- I have come, stricken with terror. Has a herald from the Danaids already arrived?
- To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?
- You are not far from being allotted now.
- Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?
- Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate
- or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.
- Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms
- shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!);
- it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy.
- Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!
- That holy land by Peneus fed,
- nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land.
- They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near
- Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.
- But see! a herald from the army of Danaids, with a store of fresh proclamations, comes hastening here. What is his errand? What does he say? For we are indeed slaves now to Dorian lords.
- Hecuba, you know me from my many journeys to and fro as herald between the Achaean army and Troy; I was no stranger to you, lady, even before: I, Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.