1 EURIPIDES' TROJAN WOMEN PREFACE, TRANSLATION, and ...

The prows of the ships
With swift beats of oars
Keeping time to the hated songs of pipes and syrinx,
Sailed to holy Ilium
Over the deep purple sea,
Then docked secure with ropes of Egyptian weave.
You were pursuing the hated
Wife of Menelaus, reproach to the Eurotas,
And shame of Castor.
She killed Priam, the sower of fifty sons,
And drove me, Hecuba, into misery.
Such is my grief as I sit here waiting,
On the ground before the tents of Agamemnon.
I am dragged a slave out of my home,
An old grey woman, my head scarred with sorrow.
Come you miserable wives of Trojans
Who once bore spears of bronze,
And you daughters, brides of sorrow,
Let us sing our tears for Troy as it burns.
Like a mother of winged birds
I lead the shrill cry
Not the song of yesterday,
When Priam leaned on his scepter, 150
And my feet led the dance tapping out the beat
To honour the Phrygian gods.
[Enter Half-Chorus A]
Half-Chorus A
Hecuba, why did you cry? Baying like a dog?
Have you heard any news? I heard your sad cry
Echo in the tents. Fear shot through our hearts,
We Trojan women waiting inside
Weeping over our life of slavery.
Hecuba
The hands of the Greeks are busy now
Readying the oars for the ships.
Half-Chorus A
Oh God, is this what they want? Will I
Sail away so soon from my father’s land?
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