Parodos
[Choral 1]
Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?
Hecuba
Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate
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or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.
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[Choral 2]
Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms
Chorus
shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!);
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it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy.
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Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!
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That holy land by Peneus fed,
nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land.
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They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near
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Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.
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