Hecuba (0-130)

I have come from out of the charnel-house and gates of gloom, where Hades dwells apart from gods, I Polydorus, a son of Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, and of Priam. Now my father, when Phrygia’s capital

was threatened with destruction by the spear of Hellas, took alarm and conveyed me secretly from the land of Troy to Polymestor’s house, his guest-friend in Thrace, who sows these fruitful plains of Chersonese, curbing by his might a nation delighting in horses.

And with me my father sent much gold by stealth, so that, if ever Ilium’s walls should fall, his children that survived might not want for means to live. I was the youngest of Priam’s sons; and this it was that caused my secret removal from the land; for my childish arm was not able

to carry weapons or to wield the spear. So long then as the bulwarks of our land stood firm, and Troy’s battlements abode unshaken, and my brother Hector prospered in his warring, I, poor child, grew up and flourished, like some vigorous shoot,

at the court of the Thracian, my father’s guest-friend. But when Troy fell and Hector lost his life and my father’s hearth was rooted up, and he himself fell butchered at the god-built altar by the hands of Achilles’ murderous son;

then my father’s friend killed me, his helpless guest, for the sake of the gold, and then cast me into the swell of the sea, to keep the gold for himself in his house. And there I lie, at one time upon the strand, at another in the salt sea’s surge, drifting ever up and down upon the billows,

unwept, unburied; but now I am hovering over the head of my dear mother Hecuba, a disembodied spirit, keeping my airy station these three days, ever since my poor mother came from Troy to linger here in the Chersonese.

Meanwhile all the Achaeans sit idly here in their ships at the shores of Thrace; for the son of Peleus, Achilles, appeared above his tomb and stopped the whole army of Hellas, as they were making straight for home across the sea,

demanding to have my sister Polyxena offered at his tomb, and to receive his reward. And he will obtain this prize, nor will they that are his friends refuse the gift; and on this very day fate is leading my sister to her doom.

So will my mother see two children dead at once, me and that ill-fated maid. For I, to win a grave, ah me! will appear among the rippling waves before her servant-maid’s feet. Yes! I have begged this from the powers below,

to find a tomb and fall into my mother’s hands. So shall I have my heart’s desire; but now I will get out of the way of aged Hecuba, for here she passes on her way from the shelter of Agamemnon’s tent, terrified at my spectre.

Alas! O mother, from a palace to face a life of slavery, how sad your lot, as sad as once it was blessed! Some god is now destroying you, setting this in the balance to outweigh your former bliss.