Parodos
[Choral]
Guide these aged steps, my servants, forth before the house;
Hecuba
guide and support your fellow-slave, once your queen, you maids of Troy. Grasp my aged hand, take me, support me, guide me, lift me up;
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and I will lean upon your bent arm as on a staff and quicken my halting footsteps onwards. O dazzling light of Zeus! O gloom of night! why am I thus scared by
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fearful visions of the night? O lady Earth, mother of dreams that fly on sable wings! I am seeking to avert the vision of the night, the sight of horror which I learned from my dreams
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about my son, who is safe in Thrace, and Polyxena, my dear daughter. You gods of this land! preserve my son,
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the last and only anchor of my house, now settled in Thrace, the land of snow, safe in the keeping of his father’s friend. Some fresh disaster is in store, a new strain of sorrow will be added to our woe.
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Such ceaseless thrills of terror never wrung my heart before. Oh! where, you Trojan maidens, can I find inspired Helenus or Cassandra, that they may read me my dream?
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For I saw a dappled deer mangled by a wolf’s bloody fangs, torn from my knees by force, piteously. And this too filled me with fear; over the summit of his tomb appeared Achilles’ phantom, and for his prize
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he would have one of the luckless maids of Troy. Therefore, I implore you, divine powers, avert this horror from my daughter, from my child.
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Chorus
Hecuba, I have hastened away to you, leaving my master’s tent,
where the lot assigned and appointed me as his slave, when I was driven from the city of Ilium, hunted by Achaeans at the point of the spear; no alleviation do I bring for your sufferings;
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no, I have laden myself with heavy news, and am a herald of sorrow to you, lady. It is said the Achaeans have determined in full assembly to offer your daughter in sacrifice to Achilles; for you know how one day he appeared
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standing on his tomb in golden armor, and stayed the sea-borne ships, though they had their sails already hoisted, with this pealing cry: Where away so fast, you Danaids, leaving my tomb
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without its prize? A violent dispute with stormy altercation arose, and opinion was divided in the warrior army of Hellas, some being in favor of offering the sacrifice at the tomb, others dissenting.
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There was Agamemnon, all eagerness in your interest, because of his love for the frenzied prophetess; but the two sons of Theseus, scions of Athens, though supporting different proposals, yet agreed on the same decision, which was to crown Achilles’ tomb with fresh blood;
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for they said they never would set Cassandra’s bed before Achilles’ valor.
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Now the zeal of the rival disputants was almost equal, until that shifty, smooth-mouthed liar, the son of Laertes, whose tongue is always at the service of the mob, persuaded the army not to put aside the best of all the Danaids
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for want of a servant-maid’s sacrifice, nor have it said by any of the dead that stand beside Persephone that the Danaids have left the plains of Troy without gratitude
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for their companions who died for Hellas. Odysseus will be here in an instant, to drag the tender maiden from your breast and tear her from your aged arms. Go to the temples, go to the altars,
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at Agamemnon’s knees sit as a suppliant! Invoke the gods, both those in heaven and those beneath the earth. For either your prayers will avail to spare you the loss of your unhappy child,
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or you must see your daughter fall before the tomb, her crimson blood spurting in deep dark jets from her neck encircled with gold.
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Hecuba
Woe, woe is me! What words,
or cries, or lamentations can I utter? Ah me! for the sorrows of my closing years! for slavery too cruel to endure, to bear! Woe, woe is me! What champion do I have? Family,
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and city—where are they? Aged Priam is no more; no more my children now. Which way am I to go, either this or that? Where shall I turn my steps? Where is any god or divine power to come to my aid?
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Ah, Trojan maids! bringers of evil tidings! Messengers of woe! you have made an end, an utter end of me; life on earth has no more charm for me. Oh! luckless steps, lead on,
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guide your aged mistress here to the tent. My child, daughter of a most wretched woman, come forth; listen to your mother’s voice.
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so that you may know the hideous rumor I now hear about your life, my child.
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Polyxena
Oh! mother, mother, why do you call so loud? what news is it you have proclaimed, scaring me, like a cowering bird, from my chamber by this alarm?
Hecuba
Alas, my daughter!
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Polyxena
Why this ominous address? it means sorrow for me.
Hecuba
Woe for your life!
Polyxena
Tell it, hide it no longer. Ah mother! how I dread, I dread
the import of your loud laments.
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Hecuba
Ah my daughter! a luckless mother’s child!
Polyxena
Why do you tell me this?
Hecuba
The Argives with one consent are eager for your sacrifice to the son of Peleus
Polyxena
Ah! my mother! how can you speak of such a dire mischance? Tell me all, mother, yes all!
Hecuba
It is an ill-boding rumor I tell, my child;
they bring me word that sentence is passed upon your life by the Argives’ vote.
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Polyxena
Alas, for your cruel sufferings, my persecuted mother! woe for your life of grief! What grievous outrage
has some fiend sent on you, hateful, horrible? No more shall I your daughter share your bondage, hapless youth on hapless age attending.
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For you, alas! will see me, your hapless child, torn from your arms like a calf of the hills, and sent beneath the darkness of the earth with severed throat for Hades, where with the dead
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shall I be laid, ah me! For your unhappiness I weep with plaintive wail, mother; but for my own life, its ruin and its outrage, never a tear I shed; no, death has become to me
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a happier lot than life.
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