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. are now no more; but you beside the throne of Zeus are sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon your fair young face, while the spear of Hellas has destroyed the land of Priam.
Chorus
  1. Ah! Love, Love, who once sought these Dardanian halls, deep-seated in the hearts of heavenly gods, how high you made Troy to tower in those days,
  2. allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light is dear to man,
  3. turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband to give her children, [*](Referring to he union of Aurora and Tithonus) from this land,
  4. whom once a chariot of gold spangled stars caught up and carried there, great source of hope to his native country ; but all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.
Menelaus
  1. Hail! you radiant flare of the sun, by whose fair light I now shall capture her that was my wife, Helen; for I am that Menelaus, who has toiled so hard, I and Achaea’s army. I came to Troy, not so much as men suppose
  2. for, the sake of a woman, but to punish the man who from my house stole my wife, traitor to my hospitality. But he, by the gods’ will, has paid the penalty, ruined, and his country too, by the spear of Hellas. And I have come to bear that wretched woman away—wife I have no mind
  3. to call her, though she once was mine—for now she is one among the other Trojan women who share these tents as captives. For they, the very men who who toiled to take her with the spear, have granted to me to slay her,
  4. or, if I will, to spare and carry back with me to Argos. Now my purpose is not to put her to death in Troy, but to carry her to Hellas in my sea-borne ship, and then surrender her to death, a recompense to all whose friends were slain in Ilium.
  5. Ho! my servants, enter the tent, and drag her out to me by her hair foul with murder; and when a favoring breeze shall blow, to Hellas will we convey her.
Hecuba
  1. O you that do support the earth and rest thereupon,
  2. whoever you are, a riddle past our knowledge! Zeus, owhether you are natural necessity, or man’s intellect, to you I pray; for, though you tread over a noiseless path, all your dealings with mankind are guided by justice.
Menelaus
  1. What is this? Strange the prayer you offer to the gods!
Hecuba
  1. I thank you, Menelaus, if you will slay that wife of yours. Yet shun the sight of her, lest she strike you with longing. For she ensnares the eyes of men, overthrows their towns, and burns their houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so do you and those her victims too.
Helen
  1. Menelaus! this prelude well may fill me with alarm; for I am taken with violence by your servants’ hands and brought before these tents. Still, though I am sure you hate me, yet I want to inquire
  2. what you and Hellas have decided about my life.
Menelaus
  1. To judge your case required no great exactness; the army with one consent, that army whom you wronged, handed you over to me to die.
Helen
  1. May I answer this decision, proving that my death, if I am to die, will be unjust?