Unhappy one, bitter these woes to bear.AndromacheOur city ruined—HecubaAnd sorrow to sorrow added.AndromacheThrough the will of angry heaven, since the day that son i.e., Paris, who had been exposed to die on account of an oracle foretelling the misery he would cause if he grew to man’s estate; but shepherds had found him on the hills and reared him. of yours escaped death, he that for a hated bride brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy has come to slavery’s yoke.

HecubaO my country, O unhappy land—AndromacheI weep for you now left behind.HecubaNow do you behold your piteous end.AndromacheAnd you, my house, where I gave birth.HecubaO my children! bereft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! . . . oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs and never shed a tear.Chorus LeaderWhat sweet relief to sufferers it is to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!AndromacheDo you see this, mother of that man, Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?HecubaI see that it is heaven’s way to exalt what men accounted nothing, and ruin what they most esteemed.AndromacheHence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are brought to slavery—a bitter change.HecubaThis is necessity’s grim law; it was just now that Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.AndromacheAlas, alas! it seems a second Aias has appeared to wrong your daughter; but there are other ills for you.HecubaYes, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.AndromacheYour daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles’ tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.HecubaO woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long ago told me, a truth obscurely uttered.AndromacheI saw her myself; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and struck upon my breast.HecubaAlas! my child, for your unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, alas! for your shameful death!AndromacheHer death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than my life.HecubaDeath and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.AndromacheHear, O mother of children! give ear to what I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit. It is all one, I say, never to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of yours is dead as though she never had seen the light, and little she knows of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my luck in life. For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name;