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.
- To minister at Achilles’ tomb has been appointed her.
- Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man’s slave! What custom, what ordinance is this among Hellenes, friend?
- Count your daughter happy; it is well with her.
- What wild words are these? Please tell me, is she still alive?
- Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.
- And what of the wife of Hector skilled in arms, sad Andromache? declare her fate.
- She too was a chosen prize; Achilles’ son took her.
- As for me
- whose hair is white with age, who need to hold a staff to be to me a third foot, whose servant am I to be?
- Odysseus, king of Ithaca, has taken you to be his slave.
- Oh, oh! Now smite the close-shorn head!
- tear your cheeks with your nails! Ah me! I have fallen as a slave to a treacherous foe I hate, a monster of lawlessness,
- one that by his double tongue has turned against us all that once was friendly in his camp, changing this for that and that for this again. Oh weep for me, you Trojan women! Lost and ill-fated!
- Ah woe! a victim to a most unhappy lot!
- Your fate, royal mistress, now you know; but for me, what Helene or Achaean is master of my destiny?
- Go, servants, and bring Cassandra forth to me here
- at once, that I may place her in our captain’s hands, and then conduct to the rest of the chiefs the captives each has had assigned. Ha! what is the blaze of torches there within? What are they doing? Are they firing the chambers,
- because they must leave this land and be carried away to Argos? Are they setting themselves aflame in their longing for death? Truly the free bear their troubles in cases like this with a stiff neck. Open up! lest their deed, which suits them well