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

What young woman did not come,
Nor old man from their homes?
Celebrating in song,
They embraced their wily destruction.
All the Phrygian people
Raced to the gates
To bring the well-carved horse,
Made out of mountain pine,
That trap from the Greeks,
And death of Trojans,
As a gift for the goddess unwed,
Known for her immortal horses.
They dragged it with knotted ropes of linen;
Like the hull of a dark boat, it nosed its way
Into the shrine of Pallas Athena,
Onto its marble floors,
Soon to run with Trojan blood.
Over their toil and joy,
Night’s darkness fell.
While the Libyan pipe played,
Phrygian songs were sung,
And young girls danced away,
Singing a glad song.
In the houses a bright gleam of fire, 550
Shed a dark sheen on those who slept.
I was singing and dancing
In honour of the mountain maiden,
Artemis, the daughter of Zeus,
When a bloody cry arose in the city,
And froze the heart of Troy.
Children clung to their mother’s skirts
With frightened hands.
The god of war, Ares,
Lurched out of his hiding place,
That work of Pallas Athena.
Trojans were slaughtered at their altars,
And heads hacked off in bed.
The destitute women were prizes,
To give birth to sons for the Greeks,
And shame for our country.
[Hector’s wife Andromache is wheeled in on stage with her son
Astyanax]
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