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