Euripides The Trojan Women 568

Chorus Leader

Hecuba, do you see Andromache advancing here on a foreign chariot?

and with her, clasped to her throbbing breast, is her dear Astyanax, Hector’s child. Where are you being carried, unhappy wife, mounted on that chariot, side by side with Hector’s brazen arms and Phrygian spoils of war,

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with which Achilles’ son will deck the shrines of Phthia on his return from Troy ?

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Andromache

My Achaean masters are leading me away.

Hecuba

Ah me!

Andromache

Why do you in note of woe utter the dirge that is mine?

Hecuba

Alas—

Andromache

For these sorrows—

Hecuba

O Zeus—

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Andromache

And for this calamity.

Hecuba

O my children!

Andromache

Our day is past.

Hecuba

Joy is gone, Troy is gone.

Andromache

Unhappy!

Hecuba

For my gallant sons

Andromache

Alas!

Hecuba

Alas indeed, for my

Andromache

Misery!

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Hecuba

Piteous the fate

Andromache

Of our city,

Hecuba

Smouldering in the smoke.

Andromache

Come to me, my husband, come to me!

Hecuba

Ah, hapless wife! you call on my son who lies in the tomb.

Andromache

Your wife’s defender!

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Hecuba

Oh, you, who before made the Achaeans grieve, eldest of the sons I bore to Priam, take me to your rest in Hades’ halls!

Andromache

These great griefs—

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Hecuba

Unhappy one, bitter these woes to bear.

Andromache

Our city ruined—

Hecuba

And sorrow to sorrow added.

Andromache

Through the will of angry heaven, since the day that son ¹ of yours escaped death, he that for a hated bride brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off;

and Troy has come to slavery’s yoke.

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Hecuba

O my country, O unhappy land—

Andromache

I weep for you now left behind.

Hecuba

Now do you behold your piteous end.

Andromache

And you, my house, where I gave birth.

Hecuba

O my children! bereft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! . . .

oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs and never shed a tear.

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Chorus Leader

What sweet relief to sufferers it is to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!

Andromache

Do you see this, mother of that man, Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos ?

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Hecuba

I see that it is heaven’s way to exalt what men accounted nothing, and ruin what they most esteemed.

Andromache

Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble

are brought to slavery—a bitter change.

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Hecuba

This is necessity’s grim law; it was just now that Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.

Andromache

Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias has appeared to wrong your daughter; but there are other ills for you.

Hecuba

Yes, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.

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Andromache

Your daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles ’ tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.

Hecuba

O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius

long ago told me, a truth obscurely uttered.

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Andromache

I saw her myself; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and struck upon my breast.

Hecuba

Alas! my child, for your unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, alas! for your shameful death!

Andromache

Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than my life.

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Hecuba

Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.

Andromache

Hear, O mother of children! give ear to what I urge so well,

that I may cheer my drooping spirit. It is all one, I say, never to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days

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feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of yours is dead as though she never had seen the light, and little she knows of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my luck in life.

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For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector ’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name;

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therefore I gave up any longing to do so, and stayed within my house; nor would I admit indoors the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my husband;

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and well I knew where I might rule him, and where it was best to yield.

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Report of this has reached the Achaean army, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me

as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector , and open my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure.

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And yet they say a single night removes a woman’s dislike for her husband; I despise the woman who, when she has lost her former husband, transfers her love by marrying another. Not even the horse, if parted from her stablemate,

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will cheerfully draw the yoke; and animals have neither speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man’s inferiors.

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673

O my dear Hector , in you I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty;

while you took from my father’s house a spotless bride, yourself the first to make this maiden wife. But now death has claimed you, and I am soon to sail to Hellas , a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery. Has not then the dead Polyxena,

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for whom you wail, less evil to bear than I? I have not so much as hope, the last resource of every human heart, nor do I beguile myself with dreams of future bliss, the very thought of which is sweet.

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Chorus Leader

You are in the same plight as I; your lamentations

for yourself remind me of my own sad case.

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Hecuba

I never yet have set foot on a ship’s deck, though I have seen such things in pictures and know of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if there comes a storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save themselves by toil;

one stands at the tiller, another sets himself to work the sheets, a third meanwhile is baling out the ship; but if tempestuous waves arise to overwhelm them, they yield to fortune and commit themselves to the driving billows. Even so I, by reason of my countless troubles,

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am speechless and forbear to say a word; for this surge of misery from the gods is too strong for me. Cease, my darling child, to speak of Hector ’s fate; no tears of yours can save him; honor your present master,

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offering your sweet nature as the bait to win him. If you do this, you will cheer your friends as well as yourself and you shalt rear my Hector’s child to lend stout aid to Ilium , that so your children in the aftertime

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may build her up again, and our city yet be established. But our talk must take a different turn; who is this Achaean servant I see coming here again, sent to tell us of some new design?

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Talthybius

You that once were the wife of Hector, bravest of the Phrygians,

do not hate me, for I am not a willing messenger. The Danaids and sons of Pelops both command—

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Andromache

What is it? your prelude bodes evil news.

Talthybius

It is decreed your son is—how can I tell my news?

Andromache

Surely not to have a different master from me?

Talthybius

None of all Achaea ’s chiefs shall ever lord it over him.

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Andromache

Is it their will to leave him here, a remnant of Phrygia ’s race?

Talthybius

I know no words to break the sorrow lightly to you.

Andromache

I thank you for your consideration, unless indeed you have good news to tell.

Talthybius

They mean to slay your son; there is my hateful message to you.

Andromache

Oh me! this is worse tidings than my forced marriage.

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Talthybius

So spoke Odysseus to the assembled Hellenes, and his word prevails.

Andromache

Oh, once again alas! there is no measure in the woes I bear.

Talthybius

He said they should not rear so brave a father’s son.

Andromache

May such counsels prevail about children of his!

Talthybius

He must be thrown from Troy ’s battlements. Let it be so, and you will show more wisdom; do not cling to him, but bear your sorrows with heroic heart, nor in your weakness think that you are strong. For nowhere do you have any help; consider this you must;

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your husband and your city are no more, so you are in our power, and I alone am match enough for one woman; therefore I would not see you bent on strife, or any course to bring you shame or hate, nor would I hear you rashly curse the Achaeans.

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For if you say anything to anger the army, this child will find no burial nor pity either. But if you hold your peace and with composure take your fate, you will not leave his corpse unburied, and you yourself will find more favor with the Achaeans.

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Andromache

My dearest! my own sweet child and priceless treasure! your death the foe demands, and you must leave your wretched mother. That which saves the lives of others, proves your destruction—your father’s nobility; to you your father’s valiancy has proved no gift.

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O my unlucky bed and marriage, that brought me once to Hector’s home, hoping to be the mother of a son that should rule over Asia ’s fruitful fields instead of serving as a victim to the Danaids! Do you weep, my child? do you know your hapless fate?

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Why clutch me with your hands and to my garment cling, nestling like a tender chick beneath my wing? Hector will not rise from the earth and come gripping his famous spear to bring you salvation; no kinsman of your father appears, nor might of Phrygian hosts;

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one dreadful headlong leap from the dizzy height and you will dash out your life with none to pity you! Oh to clasp your tender limbs, a mother’s fondest joy! Oh to breathe your fragrant breath! In vain it seems these breasts did suckle you, wrapped in your swaddling-clothes;

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all for nothing I used to toil and wear myself away! Kiss your mother now for the last time, nestle to her that bore you, twine your arms about my neck and join your lips to mine! O you Hellenes, cunning to devise new forms of cruelty,

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why slay this child who never wronged any? You daughter of Tyndareus, you are no child of Zeus, but I say you were born of many a father, first of some evil demon, next of Envy, then of Murder and of Death, and every horror that the earth breeds.

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That Zeus was never father of yours I boldly do assert, bane as you have been to many a Hellene and barbarian too. Destruction catch you! Those fair eyes of yours have brought a shameful ruin on the fields of glorious Troy . Take the child and bear him hence, hurl him down if you wish,

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then feast upon his flesh! It is the gods’ will we perish, and I cannot ward the deadly stroke from my child. Hide me and my misery; cast me into the ship’s hold; for it is to a fair wedding I am going, now that I have lost my child!

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Chorus Leader

Unhappy Troy ! you have lost countless men for the sake of one woman and her hateful bed.

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Talthybius

Come, child, leave fond embracing of your woeful mother, and mount the high coronal of your ancestral towers,

there to draw your parting breath, as is ordained. Take him away. His should the duty be to do such herald’s work, whose heart knows no pity and who loves ruthlessness more than my soul does. Exeunt Andromache and Talthybius with Astyanax.

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Hecuba

O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and your mother of your life. How is it with me? What can I do for you, luckless one? For you I strike upon my head and beat my breast, my only gift;

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for that is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for you! What sorrow do we not have? What is wanting now to our utter and immediate ruin?

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