Hecuba (399-450)

Not if you will listen to those who are wiser than you.

Be sure I will never willingly relinquish my child.

Well, be equally sure I will never go away and leave her here.

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,

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.

O my daughter, I am still to live and be a slave.

Unwedded I depart, never having tasted the married joys that were my due!

Yours, my daughter, is a piteous lot, and sad is mine also.

There in Hades’ courts shall I lie apart from you.

Ah me, what shall I do? where shall I end my life?

Daughter of a free-born father, a slave I am to die.

Not one of all my fifty children left!

What message can I take for you to Hector or your aged lord?

Tell them that of all women I am the most miserable.

Ah! breasts and paps that fed me with sweet food!

Oh, my daughter—your wretched, untimely fate!

Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra!

Fare well! others do, but not your mother, no!

You too, my brother Polydorus, in Thrace, the home of steeds!

Yes, if he lives, which I doubt; so luckless am I in every way.

He lives; and, when you die, he will close your eyes.

I am dead; sorrow has forestalled death here.

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.

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.