Euripides' HECUBA Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

54 pages - You are on Page 38

Polymestor: My dear friend Priam, and thou no less, Hecuba, I weep
to see thee and thy city thus, and thy daughter lately slain. Alas!
there is naught to be relied on; fair fame is insecure, nor is there
any guarantee that weal will not be turned to woe. For the gods confound
our fortunes, tossing them to and fro, and introduce confusion, that
our perplexity may make us worship them. But what boots it to bemoan
these things, when it brings one no nearer to heading the trouble?
If thou art blaming me at all for my absence, stay a moment; I was
away in the very heart of Thrace when thou wast brought hither; but
on my return, just as I was starting from my home for the same purpose,
thy maid fell in with me, and gave me thy message, which brought me
here at once.

Hecuba: Polymestor, I am holden in such wretched plight that I blush
to meet thine eye; for my present evil case makes me ashamed to face
thee who didst see me in happier days, and I cannot look on thee with
unfaltering gaze. Do not then think it ill-will on my part, Polymestor;
there is another cause as well, I mean the custom which forbids women
to meet men's gaze.

Polymestor: No wonder, surely. But what need hast thou of me? Why
didst send for me to come hither from my house?

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