Euripides' THE TROJAN WOMEN Complete

Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Gilbert Murray.

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89 pages - You are on Page 40

Leader

Lo, yonder on the heaped crest
Of a Greek wain, Andromache [31],
As one that o'er an unknown sea
Tosseth; and on her wave-borne breast
Her loved one clingeth, Hector's child,
Astyanax.... O most forlorn
Of women, whither go'st thou, borne
'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piled
Spoils of the dead, and pageantry
Of them that hunted Ilion down?
Aye, richly thy new lord shall crown
The mountain shrines of Thessaly!

Andromache
[Strophe I.

Forth to the Greek I go,
Driven as a beast is driven.

Hecuba: Woe, woe!

Andromache: Nay, mine is woe:
Woe to none other given,
And the song and the crown therefor!

[31] Andromache and Hecuba.] -- This very beautiful scene is perhaps marred to most modern readers by an element which is merely a part of the convention of ancient mourning. Each of the mourners cries: "There is no affliction like mine!" and then proceeds to argue, as it were, against the other's counter claim. One can only say that it was, after all, what they expected of each other; and I believe the same convention exists in most places where keening or wailing is an actual practice.

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