aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

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THE TROJAN WOMEN
An. Miseryl
death of hers was after all a happier fate than this
Hec. Piteous the fate­
An. Of our city,
Hec. Smouldering in the smoke.
.·4n. Come, my husband, come to mel
Hec. Ah hapless wife I thou callest on my son who
my life.
Hec. Death and life are not the same, my chlld;
the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for
hope. .
An. Hear, 0 mother of children! give ear to what
lieth in the tomb.
I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit.
An. Thy wife's defender, cornel
'Tis all one, I say, ne'er to have been born and to be
Hec. Do thou, who erst didst make the Achreans dead, and better far is death than life with misery.
grieve, eldest of the sons I bare to Priam in the days For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no
gone by, take me to thy rest in Hades' halls! grief; but he who has known prosperity and has
An. Bitter are these regrets, unhappy mother, fallen on evil days feels his spirit straying from the
bitter these woes to bear; our city ruined, and sor­ scene of former joys. Now that child of thine is dead
row evermore to sorrow added, through the will of as though she ne'er had seen the light, and little she
angry heaven, since the day that son1 of thine es­ recks of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a
caped his doom, he that for a bride accursed brought fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most,
destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the yet missed my luck in life. For all that stamps the
gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector's
\'ultures to carry off; and Troy is come to slavery's home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon
yoke .
. Hec. 0 my country, 0 unhappy land, I weep for
a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of
her not staying at home brings in its train an evil
thee now left behind; now dost thou behold thy name; therefore I gave up any wish to do so, and
piteous end; and thee, my house, I weep, wherein abode ever within my house, nor would I admit the
I suffered travail. 0 my children! reft of her city clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart
as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what that told an honest tale I W'lS content therewith.
mourning and what sorrow! oh, what endless streams
of tears in our houses I The dead alone forget their
And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest
eye before my lord; and well I knew where I might
griefs and never shed a tear.
rule mv lord, and where 'twas best to yield to him;
Ch. What sweet relief to sufferers 'tis to weep, to the fame whereof hath reached the Acha!an host,
mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive,
grief!
Achilles' son would have me as his wife, and I must
An. Dost thou see this, mother of that Hector, serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside
Iyho once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?
Hec. I see that it is heaven's way to exalt what
my love for Hector, and ope my heart to this new
lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if
men accounted naught, and ruin what they most I hate him, I shall incur my master's displeasure.
esteemed.
And yet they say a single night removes a woman's
An. Hence with my child as booty am I borne; dislike for her husband; nay. I do hate the woman
the noble are to slavery brought-a bitter, bitter who, when she hath lost her former lord, transfers
change.
Hec. This is necessity's grim law; it was but now
her love by marrying another. Not e'en the horse,
if from his fellow torn. will cheerfully draw the
Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my yoke; and yet the brutes have neither speech nor
arms.
sense to help them, and are by nature man's in­
An. Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias hath appeared feriors. 0 Hector minel in thee I found a husband
to wrong thy daughter; but there be other ills for amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and for­
thee.
Hec. Ay, beyond all count or measure are my
tune, a brave man and a mighty; whilst thou didst
take me from my father's house a spotless bride,
sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first. thyself the first to make this maiden wife. But now
An. Thy daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at death hath claimed thee, and I to Hellas am soon
Achilles' tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.
Hec. 0 woe is mel This is that riddle Talthybius
to sail, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery.
Hath not then the dead Polyxena, for whom thou
long since told me, a truth obscurely uttered. wailest, less evil to bear than I? I have not so much
An. I saw her with mine eyes; so I alighted from as hope, the last resource of every human heart, nor
the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, do I beguile myself with dreams of future bliss, the
and smote upon my breast.
Hec. Alas! my child, for thy unhallowedsacri­
very thought whereof is sweet.
Ch. Thou art in the self-same plight as I; thy
ficel and yet again, ah me! for this thy shameful lamentations for thyself remind me of my own sad
death!
An. Her death was even as it was, and yet that
case.
Hec. I never yet have set foot on a ship's deck,
IParis, 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.
though I have seen such things in pictures and know
of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if there come a
storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save
themselves by toil; one at the tiller stands, another
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