O my daughter! 'mid this crowd of sorrows I know not where to turn my gaze; for if I set myself to one, another will not give me pause;while from this again a fresh grief summons me, finding a successor to sorrow's throne. No longer now can I efface from my mind the memory of thy sufferings sufficiently to stay my tears; yet hath the story of thy noble death taken from the keenness of my grief. Is it not then strange that poor land, when blessed by heaven with a lucky year, yields a good crop, while that which is good, if robbed of needful care, bears but little increase; yet 'mongst men the knave is never other than a knave, the good man aught but good, never changing for the worse because of misfortune, but ever the same? Is then the difference due to birth or bringing up? Good training doubtless gives lessons in good conduct, and if a man have mastered this, he knows what is base by the standard of good. Random shafts of my soul's shooting these, I know.
(To TALTHYBIUS) Go thou and proclaim to the Argives that they touch not my daughter's body but keep the crowd away. For when countless host is gathered, the mob knows no restraint, and the unruliness of sailors exceeds that of fire, all abstinence from evil being counted evil.
(TALTHYBIUS goes out.)
(Addressing a servant) My aged handmaid, take a pitcher and dip it in the salt sea and bring hither thereof, that I for the last time may wash my child, a virgin wife, a widowed maid, and lay her out,-as she deserves, ah! whence can I? impossible! but as best I can; and what will that be? I will collect adornment from the captives, my companions in these tents, if haply any of them escaping her master's eye have some secret store from her old home.
(The MAID departs.)
O towering halls, O home so happy once, O Priam, rich in store of fairest wealth, most blest of sires, and I no less, the grey-haired mother of thy race, how are we brought to naught, stripped of our former pride! And spite of all we vaunt ourselves, one on the riches of his house, another be, cause he has an honoured name amongst his fellow-citizens! But these things are naught; in vain are all our thoughtful schemes, in vain our vaunting words. He is happiest who meets no sorrow in his daily walk.
(HECUBA enters the tent.)
CHORUS (singing)
stropheWoe and tribulation were made my lot in life, soon as ever Paris felled his beams of pine in Ida's woods, to sail across the heaving main in quest of Helen's hand, fairest bride on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.
antistropheFor here beginneth trouble's cycle, and, worse than that, relentless fate; and from one man's folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. The strife the shepherd decided on Ida 'twixt three daughters of the blessed gods,epodebrought as its result war and bloodshed and the ruin of my home;and many a Spartan maiden too is weeping bitter tears in her halls on the banks of fair Eurotas, and many a mother whose sons are slain, is smiting her hoary head and tearing her cheeks, making her nails red in the furrowed gash.
MAID
(entering excitedly, attended by bearers bringing in a covered corpse)Oh! where, ladies, is Hecuba, our queen of sorrow, who far surpasses all in tribulation, men and women both alike? None shall wrest the crown from her.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
What now, thou wretched bird of boding note? Thy evil tidings never seem to rest.
MAID
'Tis to Hecuba I bring my bitter news; no easy task is it for mortal lips to speak smooth words in sorrow's hour.
LEADER
Lo! she is coming even now from the shelter of the tent appearing just in time to hear thee speak.
(HECUBA comes out of the tent.)
MAID
Alas for thee! most hapless queen, ruined beyond all words of mine to tell; robbed of the light of life; of children, husband, city reft;hopelessly undone!
HECUBA
This is no news but insult; I have heard it all before. But why art thou come, bringing hither to me the corpse of Polyxena, on whose burial Achaea's host was reported to be busily engaged?
MAID (aside)
She little knows what I have to tell, but mourns Polyxena, not grasping her new sorrows.
HECUBA
Ah! woe is me! thou art not surely bringing hither mad Cassandra, the prophetic maid?
MAID
She lives, of whom thou speakest; but the dead thou dost not weep is here. (Uncovering the corpse) Mark well the body now laid bare; is not this a sight to fill thee with wonder, and upset thy hopes?
HECUBA
Ah me! 'tis the corpse of my son Polydorus I behold, whom he of Thrace was keeping safe for me in his halls. Alas! this is the end of all; my life is o'er.
(Chanting) O my son, my son, alas for thee! a frantic strain I now begin; thy fate I learnt, a moment gone, from some foul fiend.
MAID
What! so thou knewest thy son's fate, poor lady.
HECUBA (chanting)
I cannot, cannot credit this fresh sight I see. Woe succeeds to woe; time will never cease henceforth to bring me groans and tears.
LEADER
Alas poor lady, our sufferings are cruel indeed.
HECUBA (chanting)
O my son, child of a luckless mother, what was the manner of thy death? what lays thee dead at my feet? Who did the deed?
MAID
I know not. On the sea-shore I found him.
HECUBA (chanting)
Cast up on the smooth sand, or thrown there after the murderous blow?
MAID
The waves had washed him ashore.
HECUBA (chanting)
Alas! alas! I read aright the vision I saw in my sleep, nor did the phantom dusky-winged escape my ken, even the vision I saw concerning my son, who is now no more within the bright sunshine.
LEADER
Who slew him then? Can thy dream-lore tell us that?
HECUBA (chanting)
'Twas my own, own friend, the knight of Thrace, with whom his aged sire had placed the boy in hiding.
LEADER
O horror! what wilt thou say? did he slay him to get the gold?
HECUBA (chanting)
O awful crime! O deed without a name! beggaring wonder! impious!
intolerable! Where are now the laws 'twixt guest and host? Accursed monster! how hast thou mangled his flesh, slashing the poor child's limbs with ruthless sword, lost to all sense of pity!
LEADER
