Talthybius Come, child, leave fond embracing of your woeful mother, and mount the high coronal of your ancestral towers, there to draw your parting breath, as is ordained. Take him away. His should the duty be to do such herald’s work, whose heart knows no pity and who loves ruthlessness more than my soul does.
Hecuba O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and your mother of your life. How is it with me? What can I do for you, luckless one? For you I strike upon my head and beat my breast, my only gift; for that is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for you! What sorrow do we not have? What is wanting now to our utter and immediate ruin?
Chorus
O Telamon, King of Salamis, the feeding-ground of bees, who have your home in a seagirt isle that lies near the holy hills where first Athena made the grey olive branch to appear, a crown for heavenly heads and a glory to happy Athens, you came, you came in knightly brotherhood with that great archer, Alcmena’s son, to sack our city Ilium, in days gone by, ;
Chorus
When he led the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed for the steeds, and at the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened cables to the stern, and forth from the ship he took the bow his hand could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy breath of fire he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus’ line and chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks has the blood-stained spear destroyed Dardania’s walls.
Chorus
In vain, it seems, you Phrygian boy pacing with dainty step among your golden chalices, do you fill high the cup of Zeus, a lovely service; the land of your birth is being consumed by fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its young, so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our old mothers. The dew-fed springs where you bathed, the course where you trained, are now no more; but you beside the throne of Zeus are sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon your fair young face, while the spear of Hellas has destroyed the land of Priam.
Chorus
Ah! Love, Love, who once sought these Dardanian halls, deep-seated in the hearts of heavenly gods, how high you made Troy to tower in those days, allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light is dear to man, turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband to give her children, from this land, whom once a chariot of gold spangled stars caught up and carried there, great source of hope to his native country ; but all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.
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