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. who have your home in a seagirt isle that lies near the holy hills where first Athena made the grey olive branch to appear, a crown for heavenly heads and a glory to happy Athens, you came, you came in knightly brotherhood
  2. with that great archer, Alcmena’s son, to sack our city Ilium, in days gone by, on your advent from Hellas;
Chorus
  1. When he led the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed
  2. for the steeds, [*](Heracles had destroyed a sea-monster for Laomedon on condition of receiving a gift of horses for his trouble, and, on Laomedon repudiating the promise, sacked Troy.) and at the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened cables to the stern, and forth from the ship he took the bow his hand could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy breath of fire
  3. he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus’ line and chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks has the blood-stained spear destroyed Dardania’s walls.
Chorus
  1. In vain, it seems, you Phrygian boy [*](Ganymede, a son of Tros.) pacing with dainty step among your golden chalices, do you fill high the cup of Zeus, a lovely service;
  2. the land of your birth is being consumed by fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its young,
  3. so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our old mothers. The dew-fed springs where you bathed, the course where you trained,