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The Trojan Women (175-250)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg011.perseus-eng2:175-250
Refs {'start': {'reference': '175', 'human_reference': 'Line 175'}, 'end': {'reference': '250', 'human_reference': 'Line 250'}}
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who are leaving you behind!
176
Second Semi-Chorus
With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of you, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, or
whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.
Hecuba
My child, your wakeful heart!
Second Semi-Chorus
I have come, stricken with terror. Has a herald from the Danaids already arrived?
To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?
Hecuba
You are not far from being allotted now.
Second Semi-Chorus
Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?
Hecuba
Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate
or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.
197
Chorus
Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms
shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!);
it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy.
Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!
214
Chorus
That holy land by Peneus fed,
nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land.
They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near
Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.
230
Chorus Leader
But see! a herald from the army of Danaids, with a store of fresh proclamations, comes hastening here. What is his errand? What does he say? For we are indeed slaves now to Dorian lords.
Talthybius
Hecuba, you know me from my many journeys to and fro as herald between the Achaean army and Troy; I was no stranger to you, lady, even before: I, Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.
239
In the following lines, Talthybius makes spoken responses to Hecuba’s sung questions.
Hecuba
Ah, kind friends, it has come! what I so long have dreaded.
Talthybius
The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you feared.
Hecuba
Ah me! What city did you say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?
Talthybius
Each warrior took his prize in turn; you were not all at once assigned.
Hecuba
To whom has the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan women
does a happy fortune await?
Talthybius
I know, but ask your questions separately, not all at once.
Hecuba
Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?
Talthybius
King Agamemnon has chosen her out for himself.
Hecuba
To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!

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