Stasimon 4
[Episode]
Like one who slips and falls into the surge with no haven near, so shall you lose your own life for the life you have taken. For where liability to justice coincides with heaven’s law;
1025
Chorus
there is ruin full of death and doom. Your hopes of this journey shall cheat you, for it has led you, unhappy wretch! to the halls of death; and to no warrior’s hand shall you resign your life.
1030
Polymestor
O horror! I am blinded of the light of my eyes, ah me!
1035
Chorus Leader
Did you hear, friends, that Thracian’s cry of woe?
Polymestor
O horror! horror! my children! 0 the cruel blow.
Chorus Leader
Friends, there is strange mischief afoot in yo.
Polymestor
No, you shall never escape for all your hurried flight;
for with a blow I will burst open the inmost recesses of this building.
1040
Chorus Leader
Hark! how he launches a bolt with weighty hand! Shall we force an entry? The crisis calls on us to aid Hecuba and the Trojan women.
Hecuba
Strike on, spare not, burst the doors!
you shall never replace bright vision in your eyes or see your children, whom I have slain, alive again.
1045
Chorus Leader
What! have you foiled the Thracian stranger and is he in your power, mistress? Is all your threat now brought to pass?
Hecuba
A moment, and you shall see him before the tent,
blind, advancing with blind random step; and the bodies of his two children whom I with my brave women of Troy killed; he has paid me the penalty; here he comes from the tent, as you see. I will withdraw out of his path and stand aside
1050
from the hot fury of the Thracian, my deadly foe.
1055
Polymestor
Woe is me! where can I go, where halt, or turn? shall I crawl like a wild four-footed beast on their track, as my reward? Which path shall I take first,
this or that, eager as I am to clutch those Trojan murderesses that have destroyed me? You wretched, cursed daughters
1060
of Phrygia! to what corner have you fled cowering before me? O sun-god, would you could heal, could heal my bleeding eyes, ridding me of my blindness!
1065
Ha! hush! I catch the stealthy footsteps of the women here. Where can I dart on them and gorge on their flesh and bones, making for myself a wild beasts’ meal, inflicting mutilation
1070
in requital of their outrage on me? Ah, woe is me! where am I rushing, leaving my children unguarded for maenads of hell to mangle, to be murdered and ruthlessly cast forth upon the hills, a feast of blood for dogs?
1075
Where shall I stay or turn my steps, like a ship that lies anchored at sea, gathering close my linen robe and rushing to that chamber of death, to guard my children?
1080
Chorus Leader
Woe to you! what grievous outrage has been done to you! a fearful penalty for your foul deed has the deity imposed, whoever he is whose hand is heavy upon you.
1085
Polymestor
Woe is me! Ho! my Thracian spearmen, armed,
a race of knights whom Ares inspires! Ho! Achaeans! sons of Atreus! To you I loudly call; come here, by the gods! Does any one hearken, or will no one help me? Why do you delay? Women, captive women have destroyed me.
1090
A fearful fate is mine; ah me! my hideous outrage! Where can I turn or go?
1095
Shall I take wings and soar aloft to the mansions of the sky, where Orion and Sirius dart from their eyes
1100
a flash as of fire, or shall I, in my misery, plunge to Hades’ murky flood?
1105
Chorus Leader
It is pardonable, for a man suffering from evils too heavy to bear, to rid himself of a wretched existence.
Agamemnon
Hearing a cry I have come here; for Echo,
child of the mountain-rock, has sent her voice loud-ringing through the army, causing a tumult. If we had not known that Troy’s towers were levelled by the might of Hellas, this uproar would have caused no slight panic.
1110
