While they stay on shore, or as they cross the salt sea? Athena When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; and he promises to grant me his thunder-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And you, for your part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea ’s hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities. Poseidon So shall it be, for this favor needs only a few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconos and the reefs round Delos , Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strewn with many a corpse. You go to Olympus , and taking from your father’s hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos ’ army lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man’s hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself and dies. Hecuba Lift your head, unhappy one, from the ground; raise up your neck; this is Troy no more, no longer am I queen in Ilium . Though fortune change, endure your lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, do not steer your ship of life against the tide, since chance must guide your course. Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the high-blown pride of ancestors, humbled! how brought to nothing after all! What woe must I suppress, or what declare? What plaintive dirge shall I awake? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this hard pallet! O my head, my temples, my side! How I long to turn over, and lie now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends. 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!
 First Semi-Chorus O Hecuba! why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What do your words mean? For I heard your piteous wail echo through the building, and a pang of terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as within these walls they mourn their slavish lot. Hecuba My child, even now at the ships of the Argives— First Semi-Chorus This part of the line is assigned to Hecuba in the translation and has been moved to align with the Greek. The rower’s hand is busy? Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really carry me away from my country in their fleet? Hecuba I do not know, though I guess our doom. First Semi-Chorus O misery! woe to us Trojan women, soon to hear of our troubles: Come out of the house, the Argives are preparing to return . Hecuba Oh! please do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to you, ill-fated Troy , Troy , your sun is set; and woe to your unhappy children, living and dead alike,