No one shall dispute the crown with her.Chorus LeaderWhat now, unhappy one with your cry of misery? Your evil tidings never seem to rest.Maid-servantIt is to Hecuba I bring my bitter news; no easy task is it for mortal lips to speak smooth words in sorrow.Chorus LeaderLook, she is coming even now from the shelter of the tent, appearing just in time to hear you speak. Hecuba comes out of the tent. Maid-servantO mistress, most hapless beyond all words of mine to tell; you are ruined, you no longer exist, though you are alive; of children, husband, city bereft; hopelessly undone!HecubaThis is no news but insult; I have heard it all before. But why have you come, bringing here to me the corpse of Polyxena, on whose burial Achaea’s army was reported to be busily engaged?Maid-servantShe knows nothing, but mourns Polyxena, not grasping her new sorrows.HecubaAh! woe is me! you are surely not bringing here frenzied Cassandra, the prophetic maid?Maid-servantYou speak of the living; but the dead you do not weep is here. Uncovering the corpse Mark well the body now laid bare;is not this a sight to fill you with wonder, and upset your hopes?HecubaAh me! it is the corpse of my son Polydorus I behold, whom the Thracian man was keeping safe for me in his halls. Alas! this is the end of all; my life is over. chanting O my son, my son,alas! I now begin the laments, a frantic strain I learned just now from some avenging fiend.Maid-servantWhat! so you knew your son’s fate, poor lady?HecubaI cannot, cannot credit this fresh sight I see.chantingOne woe succeeds to another; no day will ever pass without groans and tears.Chorus LeaderAlas! poor lady, our sufferings are cruel indeed.

HecubachantingO my son, child of a luckless mother,what was the manner of your death? by what fate do you lie here? by whose hands?Maid-servantI do not know. I found him on the sea-shore.HecubachantingCast up on the smooth sand, or thrown there after the murderous blow?Maid-servantThe waves had washed him ashore.

HecubachantingAlas! alas! I now know the vision I saw in my sleep; the dusky-winged phantom did not escape me, the vision I saw of you, my son, now no more within the bright sunshine.Chorus LeaderWho slew him then? Can your dream-lore tell us that?HecubachantingIt was my own familiar friend, the knight of Thrace, with whom his aged father had placed the boy in hiding.Chorus LeaderO horror! what will you say? did he slay him to get the gold?HecubachantingO dreadful crime! O deed without a name! beyond wonder!impious! intolerable! Where are the laws between guest and host? Accursed of men! how have you mangled his flesh, slashing the poor child’s limbs