Hecuba (1165-1200)

and if I tried to raise my head, anxious to help my children, they would clutch me by the hair; while if I stirred my hands, I could do nothing, poor wretch! for the numbers of the women. At last they did a fearful deed, worse than what had gone before; for they took their brooches

and stabbed the hapless pupils of my eyes, making them gush with blood, and then fled through the chambers; up I sprang like a wild beast in pursuit of the shameless murderesses, searching along each wall with hunter’s care,

dealing buffets, spreading ruin. This then is what I have suffered because of my zeal for you, Agamemnon, for slaying an enemy of yours. But to spare you a lengthy speech, if any of the men of former times have spoken ill of women, if any does so now, or shall do so hereafter,

I will say all this in one short sentence; for neither land or sea produces such a race, as whoever has had to do with them knows.

Curb your bold tongue, and do not, because of your own woes, thus embrace the whole race of women in one reproach.

For though some of us, and those a numerous class, deserve to be disliked, there are others among us who rank naturally among the good.

Never ought words to have outweighed deeds in this world, Agamemnon. No! if a man’s deeds were good, so should his words have been;

if, on the other hand, evil, his words should have been unsound, instead of its being possible at times to speak injustice well. There are, it is true, clever persons, who have made a science of this, but their cleverness cannot last for ever; a miserable end awaits them; no one ever yet escaped.

This part of my prelude belongs to you. Now will I turn to this fellow, and will give you your answer, you who say it was to save Achaea double toil and for Agamemnon’s sake that you killed my son. No, villain, in the first place

the barbarian race would never be friends with Hellas, nor could it be. Again, what interest did you have to further by your zeal? was it to form some marriage, or on the score of kinship, or what reason? or was it likely that they would sail here again and destroy