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

Where I worked the shuttle back and forth. 200
For the last time
Shall I look on my dead children.
For the last time.
But there is worse to come,
Serving some Greek bed:
I curse that night, that fate.
Or shall I draw water serving
The sacred spring Pirene?
I’d like to go to Theseus’ fair and famed land,
But not to the swirling Eurotas,
That nurtured hated Helen,
To be a slave to Menelaus
The destroyer of Troy.
My second choice after
The god-haunted holy land of Theseus,
Would be glorious Peneus,
Just before you reach Olympus.
I’ve heard of its rich harvests,
Flowers, and sweet fruits.
Perhaps the land of Hephaestus,
That faces Phoenicia,
And Etna, the mother of Sicily’s mountains,
Whose strong people win victory crowns.
Or the land near the Ionian sea,
Into which flows the stream Krathis,
That makes hair golden, like a flame,
Who nourishes and enriches
That land of brave men.
Look! A herald from the Greek army
is hurrying this way with the latest news.
What word does he bring? What will he say
to us who are slaves of Greeks?
[Enter Talthybius]
Talthybius
Hecuba, You know me, Talthybius I’ve often come
to you from the Greek camp, bringing messages to Troy.
I have a new message for you now.
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