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.

  1. therefore I gave up any longing to do so, and stayed within my house; nor would I admit indoors the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my husband;
  2. and well I knew where I might rule him, and where it was best to yield.
  3. Report of this has reached the Achaean army, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me
  4. as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and open my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure.
  5. And yet they say a single night removes a woman’s dislike for her husband; I despise the woman who, when she has lost her former husband, transfers her love by marrying another. Not even the horse, if parted from her stablemate,
  6. will cheerfully draw the yoke; and animals have neither speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man’s inferiors.
  7. O my dear Hector, in you I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty;
  8. while you took from my father’s house a spotless bride, yourself the first to make this maiden wife. But now death has claimed you, and I am soon to sail to Hellas, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery. Has not then the dead Polyxena,