Stasimon 2
[Episode 3]
and Troy has come to slavery’s yoke.
600
Hecuba
O my country, O unhappy land—
Andromache
I weep for you now left behind.
Hecuba
Now do you behold your piteous end.
Andromache
And you, my house, where I gave birth.
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 and never shed a tear.
605
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?
610
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.
615
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.
620
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.
625
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.
630
Hecuba
Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.
Andromache
Hear, O mother of children! give ear to what I urge so well,
that I may cheer my drooping spirit. It is all one, I say, never to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days
635
feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of yours is dead as though she never had seen the light, and little she knows of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my luck in life.
640
For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name;
645
therefore I gave up any longing to do so, and stayed within my house; nor would I admit indoors the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my husband;
650
and well I knew where I might rule him, and where it was best to yield.
655
Report of this has reached the Achaean army, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me
as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and open my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure.
660
