Hecuba
Woe, woe is me! What words, or cries, or lamentations can I utter? Ah me! for the sorrows of my closing years! for slavery too cruel to endure, to bear! Woe, woe is me! What champion do I have? Family, and city—where are they? Aged Priam is no more; no more my children now. Which way am I to go, either this or that? Where shall I turn my steps? Where is any god or divine power to come to my aid? Ah, Trojan maids! bringers of evil tidings! Messengers of woe! you have made an end, an utter end of me; life on earth has no more charm for me. Oh! luckless steps, lead on, guide your aged mistress here to the tent. My child, daughter of a most wretched woman, come forth; listen to your mother’s voice.
Polyxena Oh! mother, mother, why do you call so loud? what news is it you have proclaimed, scaring me, like a cowering bird, from my chamber by this alarm?
Hecuba Alas, my daughter!
Polyxena Why this ominous address? it means sorrow for me.
Hecuba Woe for your life!
Polyxena Tell it, hide it no longer. Ah mother! how I dread, I dread the import of your loud laments.
Hecuba Ah my daughter! a luckless mother’s child!
Polyxena Why do you tell me this?
Hecuba The Argives with one consent are eager for your sacrifice to the son of Peleus at his tomb.
Polyxena Ah! my mother! how can you speak of such a dire mischance? Tell me all, mother, yes all!
Hecuba It is an ill-boding rumor I tell, my child; they bring me word that sentence is passed upon your life by the Argives’ vote.
Polyxena
Alas, for your cruel sufferings, my persecuted mother! woe for your life of grief! What grievous outrage has some fiend sent on you, hateful, horrible? No more shall I your daughter share your bondage, hapless youth on hapless age attending. For you, alas! will see me, your hapless child, torn from your arms like a calf of the hills, and sent beneath the darkness of the earth with severed throat for Hades, where with the dead shall I be laid, ah me! For your unhappiness I weep with plaintive wail, mother; but for my own life, its ruin and its outrage, never a tear I shed; no, death has become to me a happier lot than life.
Chorus Leader
See where Odysseus comes in haste, to announce some fresh command to you, Hecuba.
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