Epeisodion 1
Odysseus
How so? I did not know I had a master.
Hecuba
I will cling to her like ivy to an oak.
Odysseus
Not if you will listen to those who are wiser than you.
Hecuba
Be sure I will never willingly relinquish my child.
400
Odysseus
Well, be equally sure I will never go away and leave her here.
Polyxena
Mother, listen to me; and you, son of Laertes, make allowance for a parent’s natural wrath. My poor mother, do not fight with our masters.
Will you be thrown to the ground, be roughly thrust aside and wound your aged skin, and in unseemly fashion be torn from me by youthful arms? This you will suffer; but do not, for it is not right for you. No, my dear mother! give me your beloved hand,
405
and let me press your cheek to mine; for never again, but now for the last time, shall I behold the dazzling sun-god’s orb. Take my last farewells now. O mother, my mother! I pass beneath the earth.
410
Hecuba
O my daughter, I am still to live and be a slave.
415
Polyxena
Unwedded I depart, never having tasted the married joys that were my due!
Hecuba
Yours, my daughter, is a piteous lot, and sad is mine also.
Polyxena
There in Hades’ courts shall I lie apart from you.
Hecuba
Ah me, what shall I do? where shall I end my life?
Polyxena
Daughter of a free-born father, a slave I am to die.
420
Hecuba
Not one of all my fifty children left!
Polyxena
What message can I take for you to Hector or your aged lord?
Hecuba
Tell them that of all women I am the most miserable.
Polyxena
Ah! breasts and paps that fed me with sweet food!
Hecuba
Oh, my daughter—your wretched, untimely fate!
425
Polyxena
Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra!
Hecuba
Fare well! others do, but not your mother, no!
Polyxena
You too, my brother Polydorus, in Thrace, the home of steeds!
Hecuba
Yes, if he lives, which I doubt; so luckless am I in every way.
Polyxena
He lives; and, when you die, he will close your eyes.
430
Hecuba
I am dead; sorrow has forestalled death here.
Polyxena
Come veil my head, Odysseus, and take me away; for now, before the fatal blow, my heart is melted by my mother’s wailing, and hers by mine.
O light of day! for still I may call you by your name, though now my share in you is only the time I take to go between Achilles’ tomb and the sword. Odysseus and his attendants lead Polyxena away.
435
Hecuba
Alas! I faint; my limbs sink under me. O my daughter, embrace your mother, stretch out your hand,
give it to me; do not leave me childless! Ah, friends! it is my death-blow. Oh! to see that Spartan woman, Helen, sister of the sons of Zeus, in such a plight; for her bright eyes have caused the shameful fall of Troy’s once prosperous town. Hecuba sinks fainting to the ground.
440
