Euripides The Trojan Women 48

Poseidon

From the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, have come, where choirs of Nereids dance in a graceful maze; for since the day that Phoebus and I with exact measurement

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set towers of stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart has passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is smouldering and overthrown, a prey to Argive might. For, from his home beneath Parnassus ,

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Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed army, and sent it within the battlements, a deadly statue; from which in days to come men shall tell of the Wooden Horse, with its hidden load of warriors.

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Groves stand forsaken and temples of the gods run down with blood, and at the altar’s very base, before the god who watched his home, Priam lies dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold and Phrygian spoils are being conveyed,

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and they who came against this town, those sons of Hellas , only wait a favoring breeze to follow in their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena, who helped to ruin Phrygia ,

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I am leaving Ilium , that famous town, and my altars; for when dreary desolation seizes on a town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect. Scamander’s banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids, as they by lot receive their masters.

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Arcadia takes some, and some the people of Thessaly ; others are assigned to Theseus’ sons, the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan women as are not portioned out are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the army; and with them Spartan Helen,

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daughter of Tyndareus, justly counted among the captives. And if you would see that queen of misery, Hecuba, you can; for there she lies before the gates, weeping many tears for many sorrows; at Achilles’ tomb,

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without her knowledge, her daughter Polyxena has died most piteously; Priam is gone, and her children too; Cassandra, whom the lord Apollo left to be a virgin, frenzied maid, has been forced by Agamemnon, in contempt of the god’s ordinance and of piety, to a dishonored wedlock.

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Farewell, O city once prosperous! farewell, you ramparts of polished stone! if Pallas, daughter of Zeus, had not decreed your ruin, you would be standing firmly still.

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Athena

May I address the mighty god whom the gods revere and who to my own father is very near in blood,

laying aside our former enmity?

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Poseidon

You may; for over the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell, great queen Athena.

Athena

For your forgiving mood my thanks! I have messages to impart affecting both yourself and me, lord.

Poseidon

Do you bring fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from some lesser power?

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Athena

From none of these; but on behalf of Troy , whose soil we tread, I have come to seek your mighty aid, to make it one with mine.

Poseidon

What! have you laid your former hate aside

to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes?

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Athena

First go back to the former point; will you make common cause with me in the scheme I purpose?

Poseidon

Yes, surely; but I want to learn your wishes, whether you have come to help Achaeans or Phrygians.

Athena

I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the Achaean army impose a bitter return.

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Poseidon

Why do you leap thus from mood to mood? Your love and hate both go too far, on whomever centred.

Athena

Do you not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?

Poseidon

I do: when Aias dragged away Cassandra by force.

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Athena

Yes, and the Achaeans did nothing, said nothing to him.

Poseidon

And yet it was by your mighty aid they sacked Ilium .

Athena

For which cause I would join with you to do them harm.

Poseidon

My powers are ready at your will. What is your intent?

Athena

I will impose on them a return that is no return.

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Poseidon

While they stay on shore, or as they cross the salt sea?

Athena

When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail,

and inky tempests from the sky; and he promises to grant me his thunder-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And you, for your part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea ’s hollow bay with corpses,

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that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.

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Poseidon

So shall it be, for this favor needs only a few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconos and the reefs round Delos ,

Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strewn with many a corpse. You go to Olympus , and taking from your father’s hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos ’ army lets slip its cables.

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A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man’s hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself and dies.

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