Stasimon 3
[Episode]
O my son, child of a luckless mother,
Hecuba
what was the manner of your death? by what fate do you lie here? by whose hands?
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Maid-servant
I do not know. I found him on the sea-shore.
Hecuba
Cast up on the smooth sand, or thrown there
after the murderous blow?
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Maid-servant
The waves had washed him ashore.
Hecuba
Alas! alas! I now know the vision I saw in my sleep; the dusky-winged phantom
did not escape me, the vision I saw of you, my son, now no more within the bright sunshine.
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Chorus Leader
Who slew him then? Can your dream-lore tell us that?
Hecuba
It was my own familiar friend, the knight of Thrace, with whom his aged father had placed the boy in hiding.
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Chorus Leader
O horror! what will you say? did he slay him to get the gold?
Hecuba
O dreadful crime! O deed without a name! beyond wonder!
impious! intolerable! Where are the laws between guest and host? Accursed of men! how have you mangled his flesh, slashing the poor child’s limbs
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with ruthless sword, lost to all sense of pity!
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Chorus Leader
Alas for you! how some deity, whose hand is heavy on you, has sent you troubles beyond all other mortals! But I see our lord and master
Agamemnon; so let us be still from now on, my friends.
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Agamemnon
Hecuba, why are you delaying to come and bury your daughter? for it was for this that Talthybius brought me your message begging that no one of the Argives should touch your child. And so we granted this, and are not touching her,
but this delay of yours fills me with wonder. And so I have come to send you from here; for our part there is well performed—if here there is any place for well.
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He sees the body. Oh! what man is this I see near the tents, some Trojan’s corpse? It is not an Argive’s body;
that the garments it is clad in tell me.
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Hecuba
Unhappy one! in naming you I name myself; Hecuba, what shall I do? throw myself here at Agamemnon’s knees, or bear my sorrows in silence?
Agamemnon
Why do you turn your back towards me and
weep, refusing to say what has happened? Who is this?
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Hecuba
But if he should count me as a slave and foe and spurn me from his knees, I would add to my anguish.
Agamemnon
I am no prophet born; therefore, if I am not told, I cannot learn the current of your thoughts.
Hecuba
Can it be that in estimating this man’s feelings I make him out too ill-disposed, when he is not really so?
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Agamemnon
If your wish really is that I should remain in ignorance, we are of one mind; for I have no wish myself to listen.
Hecuba
Without his aid I shall not be able to avenge
my children. Why do I still ponder the matter? I must do and dare whether I win or lose. Turning to Agamemnon Agamemnon, by your knees, by your beard and conquering hand I implore you—
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Agamemnon
What is your desire? to be
set free? that is easily done.
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Hecuba
Not that; give me vengeance on the wicked, and I am willing to lead a life of slavery forever.
Agamemnon
Well, but why do you call me to your aid?
Hecuba
It is a matter you little know of, king.
Do you see this corpse, for whom my tears now flow?
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Agamemnon
I do; but what is to follow, I cannot guess.
Hecuba
He was once my child; I bore him in my womb.
Agamemnon
Which of your sons is he, poor sufferer?
Hecuba
Not one of Priam’s race who fell beneath Ilium’s walls.
Agamemnon
Did you indeed have another son besides those, lady?
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Hecuba
Yes, the one you see here, of whom it seems I have small gain.
Agamemnon
Where then was he, when his city was being destroyed?
Hecuba
His father, fearful of his death, conveyed him out of Troy.
Agamemnon
Where did he place him apart from the sons he then had?
Hecuba
In this very land, where his corpse was found.
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Agamemnon
With Polymestor, the king of this country?
Hecuba
He was sent here in charge of gold, most bitter trust!
Agamemnon
By whom was he slain? What death overtook him?
Hecuba
By whom but this man? His Thracian host slew him.
Agamemnon
The wretch! could he have been so eager for the gold?
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Hecuba
Just so, when he heard of the Phrygians’ disaster.
Agamemnon
Where did you find him? or did some one bring his corpse?
Hecuba
This woman, who happened upon it on the sea-shore.
Agamemnon
Was she seeking it, or bent on other tasks?
Hecuba
She had gone to fetch water from the sea to wash Polyxena.
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Agamemnon
It seems then his host slew him and cast his body out to sea.
Hecuba
Yes, for the waves to toss, after mangling him in this way.
Agamemnon
Woe to you for your measureless troubles!
Hecuba
I am ruined; no evil now is left, Agamemnon.
Agamemnon
Ah! what woman was ever born to such mischance?
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Hecuba
There is no one, unless you would name Chance herself. But hear my reason for throwing myself at your knees. If my treatment seems to you deserved, I will be content; but, if otherwise, help me to punish
this most godless host, fearless alike of gods in heaven or hell, who has done a most unholy deed; who, though often he had shared my board and been counted first of all my guest-friends
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meeting with every kindness he could claim—. And receiving my consideration, he slew my son, and bent though he was on murder, did not think it right to bury him, but cast his body forth to sea.
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I may be a slave and weak as well, but the gods are strong, and Custom too which prevails over them,
for by custom it is that we believe in them and set up boundaries of right and wrong for our lives. Now if this principle, when referred to you, is to be set at nothing, and they are to escape punishment who murder guests or dare to plunder the temples of gods,
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then all fairness in human matters is at an end. Consider this then a disgrace and show regard for me, have pity on me, and, like an artist standing back from his picture, look on me and closely scan my piteous state. I was once a queen, but now I am your slave;
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a happy mother once, but now childless and old alike, bereft of city, utterly forlorn, the most wretched woman living.
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as Agamemnon is turning away. Ah! woe is me! where would you withdraw your steps from me? My efforts then will be in vain, ah me! Why, oh! why do we mortals toil, as we must, and seek out all other sciences,
but Persuasion, the only real mistress of mankind, we take no further pains to master completely by offering to pay for the knowledge, so that any man could convince his fellows as he pleased and gain his point at once?
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How shall anyone hereafter hope for prosperity? All those my sons are gone from me, and she, my daughter, is a slave and suffers shame. I am lost; I see the smoke leaping over my city. Further—though this is perhaps idly urged,
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to plead your love, still I will put the case—at your side lies my daughter, Cassandra, the inspired maiden, as the Phrygians call her. How then, king, will you acknowledge those nights of rapture, or what return shall my daughter or I her mother have
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for the love she has lavished on her lord? For from darkness and the endearments of the night mortals have their keenest joys. Listen, then; do you see this corpse? By doing him a service, you will do it to a kinsman of your bride’s.
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I have only one thing yet to urge. Oh! would I had a voice in arms, in hands, in hair and feet, placed there by the arts of Daedalus or some god, that all together they might with tears embrace your knees,
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bringing a thousand pleas to bear on you! O my lord and master, most glorious light of Hellas, listen, stretch forth a helping hand to this aged woman, for all she is a thing of nothing; still do so. For it is always a good man’s duty to help the right,
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and to punish evil-doers wherever found.
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Chorus Leader
It is strange how each extreme meets in human life! Custom determines even our natural ties, making the most bitter foes friends, and regarding as foes those who formerly were friends.
Agamemnon
Hecuba, I feel compassion for you and your son and your ill-fortune, as well as for your suppliant gesture, and I would gladly see that impious host pay you this forfeit for the sake of heaven and justice, if I could only find some way to help you
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without appearing to the army to have plotted the death of the Thracian king for Cassandra’s sake. For on one point I am assailed by perplexity: the army count this man their friend, the dead their foe; that he is dear to you
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is a matter apart, in which the army has no share. Reflect on this; for though you find me ready to share your toil and quick to lend my aid, yet the risk of being reproached by the Achaeans makes me hesitate.
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Hecuba
Ah! there is not in the world a single man free;
for he is a slave either to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart.
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But since you are afraid, deferring too much to the rabble, I will rid you of that fear.
Thus: be aware of my plot if I devise mischief against this murderer, but refrain from any share in it. And if any uproar or attempt at rescue breaks out among the Achaeans, when the Thracian is suffering his doom, check it without seeming to do so on my account.
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For what remains—take heart—I will arrange everything well.
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Agamemnon
How? what will you do? will you take a sword in your old hand and slay the barbarian, or do you have drugs or some means to aid you? Who will take your part? Where will you procure friends?
Hecuba
Sheltered beneath these tents is a crowd of Trojan women.
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Agamemnon
Do you mean the captives, the booty of the Hellenes?
Hecuba
With their help I will punish my murderous foe.
Agamemnon
How are women to master men?
Hecuba
Numbers are a fearful thing, and joined to craft a desperate foe.
Agamemnon
True; still I have a mean opinion of the female race.
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Hecuba
What? did not women slay the sons of Aegyptus, and utterly clear Lemnos of men? But let it be thus; put an end to our conference, and send this woman for me safely through the army.
To a servant And you are to draw near my Thracian friend and say, Hecuba, once queen of Ilium, summons you, on your own business no less than hers, your children too, for they also must hear what she has to say. The servant goes out. Defer awhile, Agamemnon,
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the burial of Polyxena lately slain, so that brother and sister may be laid on the same pyre and buried side by side, a double cause of sorrow to their mother.
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Agamemnon
So shall it be; yet if the army were able to sail, I could not have granted you this favor;
but as it is, for the god sends forth no favoring breeze, the army must wait and look for a calm voyage. Good luck to you, for this is the interest alike of individual and state, that the wrong-doer be punished and the good man prosper. Agamemnon departs as Hecuba withdraws into the tent.
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[Choral 1]
No more, my native Ilium, shall you be counted among the towns never sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wasting you with the spear;
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Chorus
you are shorn of your crown of towers, and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall I tread your streets.
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It was in the middle of the night my ruin came,
in the hour when sleep steals sweetly over the eyes after the feast is done. After the music and dancing, my husband had brought the sacrifice to an end and was lying in our bridal-chamber,
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his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores.
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[Choral 2]
And I was braiding my tresses beneath a tight-drawn head-band
Chorus
before my golden mirror’s countless rays, so that I might lie down to rest; when through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy: You
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sons of Hellas, when, oh! when will you sack the citadel of Ilium, and seek your homes?
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I left my bed, wearing only a tunic, like a Dorian girl,
and sought in vain, ah me! to station myself at the holy hearth of Artemis; for, after seeing my husband slain, I was led away over the broad sea; with many a backward look at my city,
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when the ship began her homeward voyage and parted me from Ilium’s strand; till alas! for very grief I fainted,
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[Choral]
Cursing Helen the sister of the Dioscuri, and Paris the baleful shepherd of Ida;
Chorus
for it was their marriage, which was no marriage but misery sent by some demon, that robbed me of my country and drove me from my home.
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Oh! may the sea’s salt flood never carry her home again; and may she never set foot in her father’s halls!
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