Parodos
[Choral]
Lift your head, unhappy one, from the ground; raise up your neck; this is Troy no more,
Hecuba
no longer am I queen in Ilium. Though fortune change, endure your lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, do not steer your ship of life against the tide, since chance must guide your course.
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Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the high-blown pride of ancestors, humbled! how brought to nothing after all!
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What woe must I suppress, or what declare? What plaintive dirge shall I awake? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this hard pallet!
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O my head, my temples, my side! How I long to turn over, and lie now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends.
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For even this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow.
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You swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium over the deep dark sea,
past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes,
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to the bays of Troy, alas! where you tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt, in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; who murdered
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Priam, the father of fifty children; the cause why I, the unhappy Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this disastrous strand. Oh that I should sit here, over against the tent of Agamemnon!
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As a slave I am led away from my home, an old woman, while from my head the hair is piteously shorn for grief. Ah! unhappy wives of those armored sons of Troy! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides,
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come weep, for Ilium is now a smouldering ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that over her fledgelings screams, will begin the strain; not the same as that
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I once sang to the gods, as I leaned on Priam’s staff and beat with my foot in Phrygian time to lead the dance!
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[Choral 1]
O Hecuba! why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What do your words mean? For I heard your piteous wail
First Semi-Chorus
echo through the building, and a pang of terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.
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Hecuba
My child, even now at the ships of the Argives—
First Semi-Chorus
This part of the line is assigned to Hecuba in the translation and has been moved to align with the Greek.The rower’s hand is busy?
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Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really carry me away from my country in their fleet?
Hecuba
I do not know, though I guess our doom.
First Semi-Chorus
O misery!
woe to us Trojan women, soon to hear of our troubles: Come out of the house, the Argives are preparing to return.
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Hecuba
Oh! please do not bid the
wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to you, ill-fated Troy, Troy, your sun is set; and woe to your unhappy children, living and dead alike,
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who are leaving you behind!
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Second Semi-Chorus
With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of you, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, or
whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.
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Hecuba
My child, your wakeful heart!
Second Semi-Chorus
I have come, stricken with terror. Has a herald from the Danaids already arrived?
To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?
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Hecuba
You are not far from being allotted now.
Second Semi-Chorus
Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?
Hecuba
Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate
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or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.
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[Choral 2]
Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms
Chorus
shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!);
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it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy.
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Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!
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That holy land by Peneus fed,
nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land.
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They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near
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Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.
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