Euripides' THE TROJAN WOMEN Complete

Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Gilbert Murray.

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89 pages - You are on Page 26

Hecuba

There is no fire, no peril: 'tis my child,
Cassandra, by the breath of God made wild.

[The door opens from within and Cassandra enters, white-robed and wreathed like a Priestess, a great torch in her hand. She is singing softly to herself and does not see the Herald or the scene before her.

Cassandra

Lift, lift it high: [Strophe.
Give it to mine hand!
Lo, I bear a flame
Unto God! I praise his name.
I light with a burning brand
This sanctuary.
Blessed is he that shall wed,
And blessed, blessed am I
In Argos: a bride to lie
With a king in a king's bed.

Hail, O Hymen [19] red,
O Torch that makest one!
Weepest thou, Mother mine own?
Surely thy cheek is pale
With tears, tears that wail
For a land and a father dead.
But I go garlanded:
I am the Bride of Desire:
Therefore my torch is borne --
Lo, the lifting of morn,
Lo, the leaping of fire! --

[19] Hymen.] -- She addresses the Torch. The shadowy Marriage-god "Hymen" was a torch and a cry as much as anything more personal. As a torch he is the sign both of marriage and of death, of sunrise and of the consuming fire. The full Moon was specially connected with marriage ceremonies.

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