For even this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow. Hecuba You swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium over the deep dark sea, past the fair havens of Hellas , to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes, to the bays of Troy , alas! where you tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt , in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; who murdered Priam, the father of fifty children; the cause why I, the unhappy Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this disastrous strand. Oh that I should sit here, over against the tent of Agamemnon! As a slave I am led away from my home, an old woman, while from my head the hair is piteously shorn for grief. Ah! unhappy wives of those armored sons of Troy ! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep, for Ilium is now a smouldering ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that over her fledgelings screams, will begin the strain; not the same as that I once sang to the gods, as I leaned on Priam’s staff and beat with my foot in Phrygian time to lead the dance!