Stasimon 1
[Episode]
But see! a herald from the army of Danaids, with a store of fresh proclamations, comes hastening here. What is his errand? What does he say? For we are indeed slaves now to Dorian lords.
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Talthybius
Hecuba, you know me from my many journeys to and fro as herald between the Achaean army and Troy; I was no stranger to you, lady, even before: I, Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.
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Hecuba
Ah, kind friends, it has come! what I so long have dreaded.
Talthybius
The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you feared.
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Hecuba
Ah me! What city did you say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?
Talthybius
Each warrior took his prize in turn; you were not all at once assigned.
Hecuba
To whom has the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan women
does a happy fortune await?
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Talthybius
I know, but ask your questions separately, not all at once.
Hecuba
Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?
Talthybius
King Agamemnon has chosen her out for himself.
Hecuba
To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!
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Talthybius
No, to share with him his stealthy love.
Hecuba
What! Phoebus’ virgin-priestess, to whom the god with golden locks granted the gift of maidenhood?
Talthybius
The dart of love has pierced his heart, love for the frenzied maid.
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Hecuba
Daughter, cast from you the sacred keys, and from your body tear the holy wreaths that drape you in their folds.
Talthybius
Why! is it not an honor that she should win our monarch’s love?
Hecuba
What have you done to her whom recently you took from me, my child?
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Talthybius
Do you mean Polyxena, or whom do you inquire about?
Hecuba
Yes, that one; to whom has the lot assigned her?
Talthybius
To minister at Achilles’ tomb has been appointed her.
Hecuba
Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man’s slave! What custom, what ordinance is this among Hellenes, friend?
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Talthybius
Count your daughter happy; it is well with her.
Hecuba
What wild words are these? Please tell me, is she still alive?
Talthybius
Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.
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Hecuba
And what of the wife of Hector skilled in arms, sad Andromache? declare her fate.
Talthybius
She too was a chosen prize; Achilles’ son took her.
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?
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Talthybius
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, has taken you to be his slave.
Hecuba
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,
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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!
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Ah woe! a victim to a most unhappy lot!
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Chorus Leader
Your fate, royal mistress, now you know; but for me, what Helene or Achaean is master of my destiny?
Talthybius
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,
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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
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but finds small favor with the Achaeans, bring blame on me.
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Hecuba
It is not that they are setting anything ablaze, but my child Cassandra, frenzied maid, comes rushing wildly here.
Cassandra
Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god’s service, see! see! making his shrine to glow with tapers bright.
O Hymen, lord of marriage! blessed is the bridegroom; blessed am I also, soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, lord of marriage!
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Since you, my mother, are busied with tears and lamentations in your mourning for my father’s death and for our country dear, I at my own nuptials
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am making this torch to blaze and show its light, giving to you, O Hymen, giving, O Hecate, a light, at the maiden’s wedding, as the custom is.
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Nimbly lift the foot; lead the dance on high, with cries of joy, as if to greet my father’s happy fate. The dance is sacred. Come, Phoebus, now, for it is in your temple
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among your bay-trees that I minister. Hail Hymen, god of marriage! Hymen, hail! Dance, mother, and laugh! link your steps with me, and circle in the delightful measure, now here, now there.
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Salute the bride on her wedding-day with hymns and cries of joy. Come, you maids of Phrygia in fair raiment, sing my marriage
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with the husband fate ordains that I should wed.
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Chorus Leader
Hold the frantic maiden, royal mistress, lest with nimble foot she rush to the Argive army.
Hecuba
You god of fire, it is yours to light the bridal torch for men, but piteous is the flame you kindle here,
beyond my blackest expectation. Ah, my child! how little did I ever dream that such would be your marriage, a captive, and of Argos too! Give up the torch to me; you do not bear its blaze aright in your wild frantic course, nor have your afflictions left you in your sober senses,
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but still you are as frantic as before. Take in those torches, Trojan friends, and for her wedding madrigals weep your tears instead.
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Cassandra
O mother, crown my head with victor’s wreaths; rejoice in my royal match; lead me
and if you find me unwilling at all, thrust me there by force; for if Loxias is indeed a prophet, Agamemnon, that famous king of the Achaeans, will find in me a bride more vexatious than Helen. For I will slay him and lay waste his home
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to avenge my father’s and my brothers’ death. But let that go; I will not tell of that axe which shall sever my neck and the necks of others, or of the conflict ending in a mother’s death, which my marriage shall cause, nor of the overthrow of Atreus’ house.
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But I, for all my frenzy, will so far rise above my frantic fit, that I will prove this city happier far than those Achaeans, who for the sake of one woman and one passion have lost a countless army in hunting Helen.
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Their captain too, whom men call wise, has lost for what he hated most what most he prized, yielding to his brother for a woman’s sake—and she was willing and not taken by force—the joy he had of his own children in his home. For from the day that they landed upon Scamander’s strand, their doom began,
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not for loss of stolen frontier nor yet for fatherland with high towers; whomever Ares took, those never saw their children again, nor were they shrouded for the tomb by hand of wife, but in a foreign land they lie. At home the case was still the same;
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wives were dying widows, parents were left childless in their homes, having reared their sons for others, and none is left to make libations of blood upon the ground before their tombs. Truly to such praise as this their army can make an ample claim. It is better to pass by their shame in silence, nor may mine be the Muse
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to tell that evil tale.
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But the Trojans were dying, first for their fatherland, fairest fame to win; whomever the sword took, all these found friends to bear their bodies home and were laid to rest in the embrace of their native land,
their funeral rites all duly paid by duteous hands. And all such Phrygians as escaped the warrior’s death lived always day by day with wife and children by them, joys the Achaeans had left behind. As for Hector and his griefs, hear how the case stands;
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he is dead and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this was a result of the Achaeans’ coming; for had they remained at home, his worth would have gone unnoticed. And Paris married the daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he made in his family would have been forgotten.
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Whoever is wise should fly from making war; but if he come to this, a noble death will crown his city with glory, a coward’s end with shame. Therefore, mother, you should not pity your country or my bed, for this my marriage
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will destroy those whom you and I most hate.
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Chorus Leader
How sweetly at your own sad lot you smile, chanting a strain, which, in spite of you, may prove you wrong!
Talthybius
Had not Apollo turned your wits to maenad revelry, you would not for nothing have sent my chiefs
with such ominous predictions forth on their way. But, after all, these lofty minds, reputed wise, are nothing better than those that are held as nothing. For that mighty king of all Hellas, dear son of Atreus, has yielded to a passion
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for this mad maiden of all others; though I am poor enough, yet would I never have chosen such a wife as this. As for you, since your senses are not whole, I give your taunts against Argos and your praise of Troy to the winds to carry away. Follow me now
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to the ships to grace the wedding of our chief. And you too follow, whenever the son of Laertes demands your presence, for you will serve a mistress most discreet, as all declare who came to Ilium.
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Cassandra
A clever fellow, this servant! Why is it heralds hold
the name they do? All men unite in hating with one common hate the attendants of kings or governments. You say my mother shall come to the halls of Odysseus? Where then are Apollo’s words, so clear to me in their interpretation, which declare
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that she shall die here? What else remains, I will not taunt her with. Unhappy Odysseus, he does not know the sufferings that await him; or how these ills I and my Phrygians endure shall one day seem to him precious as gold. For beyond the ten long years spent at Troy he shall drag out other ten and then come to his country all alone . . .
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where dreadful Charybdis lurks in a narrow channel between the rocks; past Cyclops the savage shepherd, and Ligurian Circe who turns men to swine; shipwrecked often upon the salt sea-wave; longing to eat the lotus, and the sacred cattle of the sun,
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whose flesh shall utter in the days to come a human voice, bitter to Odysseus. In brief, he shall descend alive to Hades, and, though he shall escape the waters’ flood, yet shall he find a thousand troubles in his country when he arrives.
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Enough! why do I recount the troubles of Odysseus?
Lead on at once, that I may wed my husband for his home in Hades’ halls. Base you are, and basely shall you be buried, in the dead of night when day is done, you captain of that army of Danaids, who think so proudly of your fortune! Yes, and the rocky chasm with its flood of wintry waters shall give my corpse cast forth in nakedness to wild beasts to make their meal upon,
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near my husband’s tomb, I, Apollo’s servant. O garlands of that god most dear to me! farewell, you mystic symbols! I here resign your feasts, my joy in days gone by. Go, I tear you from my body, that, while yet mine honor is intact, I may give them to the rushing winds to waft to you, my prince of prophecy!
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Where is that general’s ship? Where must I go to take my place there? Lose no further time in watching for a favoring breeze to fill your sails, doomed as you are to carry from this land one of the three avenging spirits. Fare you well, mother! dry your tears. O dear country! my brothers below the earth and my own father,
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it will not be long before you shall welcome me; victory shall crown my advent among the dead, when I have overthrown the home of our destroyers, the house of the sons of Atreus.
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Chorus Leader
You guardians of the grey-haired Hecuba, see how your mistress is sinking speechless to the ground! Take hold of her! will you let her fall,
you worthless slaves? lift up again, from where it lies, her withered body.
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Hecuba
Leave me, my maidens—unwelcome service does not grow welcome—lying where I fell; my sufferings now, my troubles past, afflictions yet to come, all claim this lowly posture. Gods of heaven! small help I find in calling such allies,
yet is there something in the form of invoking heaven, whenever we fall on evil days. First I will sing of my former blessings; so shall I inspire the greater pity for my present woes. Born to royal estate and wedded to a royal lord,
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I was the mother of a race of gallant sons; no mere ciphers they, but Phrygia’s chiefest pride, children such as no Trojan or Hellenic or barbarian mother ever had to boast. All these have I seen slain by the spear of Hellas,
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and at their tombs have I shorn off my hair; with these my eyes I saw their father, Priam, butchered on his own hearth, and my city captured, nor did others bring this bitter news to me. The maidens I brought up
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to see chosen for some marriage high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away. Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them ever in the days to come. And last, to crown my misery,
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I shall be brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. And there the tasks that least befit the evening of my life will they impose on me, Hector’s mother, to watch their gates and keep the keys, or bake their bread, and on the ground instead of my royal bed
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lay down my shrunken limbs, with tattered rags about my wasted frame, a shameful garb for those who once were prosperous. Ah, woe is me! and this is what I bear and am to bear for one woman’s marriage!
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O my daughter, O Cassandra! whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how cruel the lot that ends your virgin days! And you, Polyxena! my child of sorrow, where, oh! where are you? None of all the many sons and daughters I have born comes to aid a wretched mother.
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Why then raise me up? What hope is left us? Guide me, who before trod so daintily the streets of Troy, but now am a slave, to a bed upon the ground, near some rocky ridge, that from there I may cast myself down and perish, after I have wasted my body with weeping.
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Of all the prosperous crowd, count none a happy man before he die.
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[Choral 1]
Sing me, Muse, a tale of Troy, a funeral dirge in strains unheard as yet, with tears;
Chorus
for now I will uplift for Troy a piteous chant, telling how I met my doom and fell a wretched captive to the Argives by reason of a four-footed beast that moved on wheels, when Achaea’s sons left at our.gates that horse,
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loud rumbling to the sky, with its trappings of gold and its freight of warriors; and our people cried out as they stood upon the rocky citadel, Up now, you whose toil is over,
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and drag this sacred image to the shrine of the Zeus-born maiden, goddess of our Ilium! Forth from his house came every youth and every grey-head too; and with songs of joy
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they took the fatal snare within.
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Then hastened all the race of Phrygia to the gates, to make the goddess a present of an Argive band ambushed in the polished mountain-pine,
Dardania’s ruin, a welcome gift to be to her, the virgin queen of deathless steeds; and with nooses of cord they dragged it, as it had been a ship’s dark hull, to the stone-built
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temple of the goddess Pallas, and set it on that floor so soon to drink our country’s blood. But, as they labored and made merry, came on the pitchy night; loud the Libyan flute was sounding,
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and Phrygian songs awoke, while maidens beat the ground with airy foot, uplifting their glad song; and in the halls a blaze of torchlight shed its flickering shadows
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[Choral]
In that hour around the house I was singing as I danced to that maiden of the hills, the child of Zeus;
Chorus
when there rang along the town a cry of death which filled the homes of Troy, and babies in terror clung about their mothers’ skirts,
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as forth from their ambush came the warrior-band, the handiwork of maiden Pallas. Soon the altars ran with Phrygian blood, and desolation reigned over every bed where young men lay beheaded,
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a glorious crown for Hellas won, for her, the nurse of youth, but for our Phrygian fatherland a bitter grief.
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