First Semi-Chorus O Hecuba! why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What do your words mean? For I heard your piteous wail echo through the building, and a pang of terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.
Hecuba My child, even now at the ships of the Argives—
First Semi-Chorus The rower’s hand is busy? Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really carry me away from my country in their fleet?
Hecuba I do not know, though I guess our doom.
First Semi-Chorus O misery! woe to us Trojan women, soon to hear of our troubles: Come out of the house, the Argives are preparing to return.
Hecuba Oh! please do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to you, ill-fated Troy, Troy, your sun is set; and woe to your unhappy children, living and dead alike, who are leaving you behind!
Second Semi-Chorus With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of you, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, or whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.
Hecuba My child, your wakeful heart!
Second Semi-Chorus I have come, stricken with terror. Has a herald from the Danaids already arrived? To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?
Hecuba You are not far from being allotted now.
Second Semi-Chorus Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?
Hecuba Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.
Chorus
Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!); it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy. Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!
Chorus
That holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land. They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.
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