Stasimon 4
[Episode]
Alas! alas! you, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, you mother!
Chorus
Wail for the dead.
1230
Chorus
Woe indeed for your unending sorrow!
Hecuba
Your wounds in part I will bind up with bandages, a wretched healer in name alone, without reality; but for the rest your father must look to that among the dead.
Chorus
Smite, oh smite upon your head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!
1235
Hecuba
My kind, good friends—
Chorus
Speak out, Hecuba, the word that was on your lips.
Hecuba
It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. But if the god had not caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong beneath the earth, we should have been unheard of, and not ever sung in Muses’ songs,
1240
furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I think it makes little difference to the dead, if they get a gorgeous funeral;
1245
but this is a cause of idle pride to the living. The corpse is carried off to burial.
1250
Chorus Leader
Alas! for your unhappy mother, who over your corpse has closed the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most happy in your lot,
ah! what a tragic death is yours! Ha! who are those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming torches in their hands? Some new calamity wiII soon alight on Troy.
1255
Talthybius
You captains whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam, to you I speak. No longer keep the fire-brand idle in your hands, but launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy.
1260
And you, you sons of Troy, to let my orders take at once a double form—start for the Achaean ships for your departure from the land, as soon as the leaders of the army blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And you, unhappy grey-haired lady,
1265
follow; for here come servants from Odysseus to fetch you, for to him you are assigned by lot to be a slave far from your country.
1270
Hecuba
Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit, of all my sorrows; I go forth from my land; my city is ablaze with flame.
Yet, you aged foot, make one painful struggle to haste, that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that before had such a grand career among barbarian towns, soon will you be bereft of that splendid name. They are burning you, and leading us even now from our land
1275
to slavery. O gods! Yet why do I call on the gods? They did not hearken ever before to our call. Come, let us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing ruin would be a noble death for me.
1280
Talthybius
Your sorrows drive you frantic, poor lady.
Go, lead her away, make no delay, for you must deliver her into the hand of Odysseus, conveying to him his prize.
1285
Hecuba
Woe! oh woe! Son of Cronos, prince of Phrygia, father of our race,
do you behold our sufferings now, unworthy of the stock of Dardanus?
1290
Chorus
He sees them, but our mighty city is a city no more, and Troy’s day is done.
Ilium is ablaze; the homes of Pergamos and its towering walls are now one sheet of flame.
1295
Chorus
As the smoke soars on wings to heaven, so sinks our city to the ground before the spear.
With furious haste both fire and enemy spear devour each house.
1300
[Episode 1]
Oh, earth, nourisher of my children!
