The Chorus says that all is ready, and that the adornments from the spoils of Troy are brought. Hecuba says that it is not as victor with horse or bow that Hector's mother decks him, and she wraps the body in a robe of honour. She binds up his wounds with bandages, and says that heaven concerns itself only with her troubles, and that if the god had not turned Troy upside down, it would have been forgotten, and the Chorus sings in lament.
Lines 1207–1250 · 392 words · click a number to copy its link
Chorus Leader Look! all is ready and they are bringing at your bidding from the spoils of Troy adornment to put upon the dead.
Hecuba Ah! my child, it is not as victor over your comrades with horse or bow—customs Troy esteems, without pursuing them to excess—that Hector’s mother decks you now with ornaments from the store that once was yours, though now Helen, whom the gods abhor, has bereft you of your own, yes, and robbed you of your life and caused your house to perish root and branch.
About your body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honor, which should have clad you on your marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of Asia’s daughters. You too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent of countless triumphs past, accept your crown, for though you share the dead child’s tomb, death cannot touch you; for you merit honors far beyond those arms that the crafty villain Odysseus won.
Your wounds in part I will bind up with bandages, a wretched healer in name alone, without reality; but for the rest your father must look to that among the dead.
It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. But if the god had not caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong beneath the earth, we should have been unheard of, and not ever sung in Muses’ songs, furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I think it makes little difference to the dead, if they get a gorgeous funeral; but this is a cause of idle pride to the living.
English translation by Edward P. Coleridge (1891). Original text: Greek text: Gilbert Murray (ed.), Euripidis Fabulae, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913, as digitised by Perseus. English: Edward P. Coleridge, The Plays of Euripides, London: George Bell and Sons, first published 1891 (Bohn's Classical Library; the Perseus header records a later printing).
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Euripides. "Trojan Women 1207–1250." Translated by Edward P. Coleridge (1891). GreekMythology.com, 05 Oct. 2026, https://www.greekmythology.com/sources/euripides/trojan-women/episode-4-the-burial. Accessed 05 October 2026.
Euripides. (2026, October 05). Trojan Women 1207–1250 (Edward P. Coleridge, Trans.). GreekMythology.com. https://www.greekmythology.com/sources/euripides/trojan-women/episode-4-the-burial
Euripides. "Trojan Women 1207–1250." Translated by Edward P. Coleridge (1891). GreekMythology.com, October 05, 2026. https://www.greekmythology.com/sources/euripides/trojan-women/episode-4-the-burial.
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