not to reject the suit of the noblest of all the Greeks on account of a captive victim, and not to put it in the power of any of the dead standing near Proserpine to say that the Grecians departed from the plains of Troy ungrateful to the heroes who died for the state of Greece.  And Ulysses will come only not now, to tear your child from your bosom, and to take her from your aged arms.  But go to the temples, speed to the altars, sit a suppliant at the knees of Agamemnon, invoke the Gods, both those of heaven, and those under the earth; for either thy prayers will prevent thy being deprived of thy wretched daughter, or thou must behold the virgin falling before the tomb, dyed in blood gushing forth in a dark stream from her neck adorned with gold.[6]

Hec.  Alas! wretched me! what shall I exclaim? what shriek shall I utter? what lamentation? miserable through miserable age, and slavery not to be endured, insupportable.  Alas! who is there to defend me? what offspring, what city!  The old man is gone.  My children are gone.  Whither shall I turn me? and whither shall I go?  Where is any god or deity to succor me?  O Trojan dames, bearers of evil tidings, bearers of woe, you have destroyed me utterly, you have destroyed me.  Life in the light is no more desirable!  O wretched foot, lead, lead an aged woman to this tent!  O child, daughter of the most afflicted mother, come forth, come forth from the tent, hear thy mother’s voice, that thou mayest know what a report I hear that concerns thy life.

Hecuba, polyxena, chorus.

POLYX.  O mother, why dost thou call! proclaiming what new affliction hast thou frighted me from the tent, as some bird from its nest, with this alarm?

Hec.  Alas! my child!

POLYX.  Why address me in words of ill omen?  This is an evil prelude.

Hec.  Alas! for thy life.

POLYX.  Speak, conceal it no longer from me.  I fear, I fear, my mother; why
I pray dost thou groan?

Hec.  O child, child of an unhappy mother!

POLYX.  Why sayest thou this?

Hec.  My child, the common decree of the Greeks unites to slay thee at the tomb of the son of Peleus.

POLYX.  Alas, my mother! how are you relating unenviable ills?  Tell me, tell me, my mother.

Hec.  I declare, my child, the ill-omened report, they bring word that a decree has passed by the vote of the Greeks regarding thy life.

POLYX.  O thou that hast borne affliction!  O thou wretched on every side!  O mother unhappy in your life, what most hated and most unutterable calamity has some destiny again sent against thee!  This child is no longer thine; no longer indeed shall I miserable share slavery with miserable age.  For as a mountain whelp or heifer shalt thou wretched behold me wretched torn from thine arms, and sent down beneath the darkness of the earth a victim to Pluto, where I shall lie bound in misery with the dead.  But it is for thee indeed, my afflicted mother, that I lament in these mournful strains, but for my life, my wrongs, my fate, I mourn not; but death, a better lot, has befallen me.