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Hecuba
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,
125
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
130
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!
135
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,
140
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
145
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!
150
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,
125
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
130
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!
135
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,
140
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
145
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!
150
The Trojan Women. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1906.
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