Complete Works of Euripides

by Euripides

  O, it was well for Hellas! But for me

  Most ill; caught up and sold across the sea

  For this my beauty; yea, dishonourèd

  For that which else had been about my head

  A crown of honour…. Ah, I see thy thought;

  The first plain deed, ’tis that I answer not,

  How in the dark out of thy house I fled….

  There came the Seed of Fire, this woman’s seed;

  Came — O, a Goddess great walked with him then —

  This Alexander, Breaker-down-of-Men,

  This Paris, Strength-is-with-him; whom thou,

  whom —

  O false and light of heart — thou in thy room

  Didst leave, and spreadest sail for Cretan seas,

  Far, far from me!… And yet, how strange it is!

  I ask not thee; I ask my own sad thought,

  What was there in my heart, that I forgot

  My home and land and all I loved, to fly

  With a strange man? Surely it was not I,

  But Cypris, there! Lay thou thy rod on her,

  And be more high than Zeus and bitterer,

  Who o’er all other spirits hath his throne,

  But knows her chain must bind him. My wrong done

  Hath its own pardon….

  One word yet thou hast,

  Methinks, of righteous seeming. When at last

  The earth for Paris oped and all was o’er,

  And her strange magic bound my feet no more,

  Why kept I still his house, why fled not I

  To the Argive ships?… Ah, how I strove to fly!

  The old Gate-Warden could have told thee all,

  My husband, and the watchers from the wall;

  It was not once they took me, with the rope

  Tied, and this body swung in the air, to grope

  Its way toward thee, from that dim battlement.

  Ah, husband still, how shall thy hand be bent

  To slay me? Nay, if Right be come at last,

  What shalt thou bring but comfort for pains past,

  And harbour for a woman storm-driven:

  A woman borne away by violent men:

  And this one birthright of my beauty, this

  That might have been my glory, lo, it is

  A stamp that God hath burned, of slavery!

  Alas! and if thou cravest still to be

  As one set above gods, inviolate,

  ’Tis but a fruitless longing holds thee yet.

  LEADER.

  O Queen, think of thy children and thy land,

  And break her spell! The sweet soft speech, the

  hand

  And heart so fell: it maketh me afraid.

  HECUBA.

  Meseems her goddesses first cry mine aid

  Against these lying lips!… Not Hera, nay,

  Nor virgin Pallas deem I such low clay,

  To barter their own folk, Argos and brave

  Athens, to be trod down, the Phrygian’s slave,

  All for vain glory and a shepherd’s prize

  On Ida! Wherefore should great Hera’s eyes

  So hunger to be fair? She doth not use

  To seek for other loves, being wed with Zeus.

  And maiden Pallas … did some strange god’s face

  Beguile her, that she craved for loveliness,

  Who chose from God one virgin gift above

  All gifts, and fleeth from the lips of love?

  Ah, deck not out thine own heart’s evil springs

  By making spirits of heaven as brutish things

  And cruel. The wise may hear thee, and guess all!

  And Cypris must take ship-fantastical!

  Sail with my son and enter at the gate

  To seek thee! Had she willed it, she had sate

  At peace in heaven, and wafted thee, and all

  Amyclae with thee, under Ilion’s wall.

  My son was passing beautiful, beyond

  His peers; and thine own heart, that saw and conned

  His face, became a spirit enchanting thee.

  For all wild things that in mortality

  Have being, are Aphroditê; and the name

  She bears in heaven is born and writ of them.

  Thou sawest him in gold and orient vest

  Shining, and lo, a fire about thy breast

  Leapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things,

  Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings

  Were come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled

  The Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold,

  To steep thine arms and splash the towers! How

  small,

  How cold that day was Menelaus’ hall!

  Enough of that. It was by force my son

  Took thee, thou sayst, and striving…. Yet not one

  In Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer

  Rang from thy rooms that night…. Castor was there

  To hear thee, and his brother: both true men,

  Not yet among the stars! And after, when

  Thou camest here to Troy, and in thy track

  Argos and all its anguish and the rack

  Of war — Ah God! — perchance men told thee ‘Now

  The Greek prevails in battle’: then wouldst thou

  Praise Menelaus, that my son might smart,

  Striving with that old image in a heart

  Uncertain still. Then Troy had victories:

  And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes

  Watched Fortune’s eyes, to follow hot where she

  Led first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty.

  Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall

  Far, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall!

  Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay,

  Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way

  Of the sword, that any woman honest-souled

  Had sought long since, loving her lord of old?

  Often and often did I charge thee; ‘Go,

  My daughter; go thy ways. My sons will know

  New loves. I will give aid, and steal thee past

  The Argive watch. O give us peace at last,

  Us and our foes!’ But out thy spirit cried

  As at a bitter word. Thou hadst thy pride

  In Alexander’s house, and O, ’twas sweet

  To hold proud Easterns bowing at thy feet.

  They were great things to thee!… And comest thou

  now

  Forth, and hast decked thy bosom and thy brow,

  And breathest with thy lord the same blue air,

  Thou evil heart? Low, low, with ravaged hair,

  Rent raiment, and flesh shuddering, and within —

  O shame at last, not glory for thy sin;

  So face him if thou canst!… Lo, I have done.

  Be true, O King; let Hellas bear her crown

  Of Justice. Slay this woman, and upraise

  The law for evermore: she that betrays

  Her husband’s bed, let her be judged and die.

  LEADER.

  Be strong, O King; give judgment worthily

  For thee and thy great house. Shake off thy long

  Reproach; not weak, but iron against the wrong!

  MENELAUS.

  Thy thought doth walk with mine in one intent.

  ’Tis sure; her heart was willing, when she went

  Forth to a stranger’s bed. And all her fair

  Tale of enchantment, ’tis a thing of air!…

  [Turning furiously upon HELEN.

  Out, woman! There be those that seek thee yet

  With stones! Go, meet them. So shall thy long debt

  Be paid at last. And ere this night is o’er

  Thy dead face shall dishonour me no more!

  HELEN (kneeling before him and embracing him).

  Behold, mine arms are wreathed about thy knees;

  Lay not upon my head the phantasies

  Of Hea
ven. Remember all, and slay me not!

  HECUBA.

  Remember them she murdered, them that fought

  Beside thee, and their children! Hear that prayer!

  MENELAUS.

  Peace, agèd woman, peace! ’Tis not for her;

  She is as naught to me.

  (To the Soldiers) … March on before,

  Ye ministers, and tend her to the shore …

  And have some chambered galley set for her,

  Where she may sail the seas.

  HECUBA.

  If thou be there,

  I charge thee, let not her set foot therein!

  MENELAUS.

  How? Shall the ship go heavier for her sin?

  HECUBA.

  A lover once, will alway love again.

  MENELAUS.

  If that he loved be evil, he will fain

  Hate it!… Howbeit, thy pleasure shall be done.

  Some other ship shall bear her, not mine own….

  Thou counsellest very well…. And when we come

  To Argos, then … O then some pitiless doom

  Well-earned, black as her heart! One that shall bind

  Once for all time the law on womankind

  Of faithfulness!… ‘Twill be no easy thing,

  God knoweth. But the thought thereof shall fling

  A chill on the dreams of women, though they be

  Wilder of wing and loathèd more than she!

  [Exit, following HELEN, who is escorted by the Soldiers.

  * * * * *

  CHORUS.

  Some Women.

  [Strophe I.

  And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense,

  And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion?

  The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence,

  The myrrh on the air and the wreathèd towers gone?

  And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows,

  The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows,

  And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows,

  The lit house most holy of the Dawn?

  EURIPIDES

  Others.

  [Antistrophe I.

  The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy,

  The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer:

  The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy,

  The twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear:

  My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high,

  Were they all to thee as nothing, thou thronèd in the sky,

  Thronèd in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die,

  Passeth in the wind and the flare?

  A Woman.

  [Strophe 2.

  Dear one, O husband mine,

  Thou in the dim dominions

  Driftest with waterless lips,

  Unburied; and me the ships

  Shall bear o’er the bitter brine,

  Storm-birds upon angry pinions,

  Where the towers of the Giants shine

  O’er Argos cloudily,

  And the riders ride by the sea.

  Others.

  And children still in the Gate

  Crowd and cry,

  A multitude desolate,

  Voices that float and wait

  As the tears run dry:

  ‘Mother, alone on the shore

  They drive me, far from thee:

  Lo, the dip of the oar,

  The black hull on the sea!

  Is it the Isle Immortal,

  Salamis, waits for me?

  Is it the Rock that broods

  Over the sundered floods

  Of Corinth, the ancient portal

  Of Pelops’ sovranty?’

  A Woman.

  [Antistrophe 2.

  Out in the waste of foam,

  Where rideth dark Menelaus,

  Come to us there, O white

  And jagged, with wild sea-light

  And crashing of oar-blades, come,

  O thunder of God, and slay us:

  While our tears are wet for home,

  While out in the storm go we,

  Slaves of our enemy!

  Others.

  And, God, may Helen be there,

  With mirror of gold,

  Decking her face so fair,

  Girl-like; and hear, and stare,

  And turn death-cold:

  Never, ah, never more

  The hearth of her home to see,

  Nor sand of the Spartan shore,

  Nor tombs where her fathers be,

  Nor Athena’s bronzen Dwelling,

  Nor the towers of Pitanê

  For her face was a dark desire

  Upon Greece, and shame like fire,

  And her dead are welling, welling,

  From red Simoïs to the sea!

  * * * * *

  [TALTHYBIUS, followed by one or two Soldiers and bearing the child

  ASTYANAX dead, is seen approaching.

  LEADER.

  Ah, change on change! Yet each one racks

  This land with evil manifold;

  Unhappy wives of Troy, behold,

  They bear the dead Astyanax,

  Our prince, whom bitter Greeks this hour

  Have hurled to death from Ilion’s tower.

  TALTHYBIUS.

  One galley, Hecuba, there lingereth yet,

  Lapping the wave, to gather the last freight

  Of Pyrrhus’ spoils for Thessaly. The chief

  Himself long since hath parted, much in grief

  For Pêleus’ sake, his grandsire, whom, men say,

  Acastus, Pelias’ son, in war array

  Hath driven to exile. Loath enough before

  Was he to linger, and now goes the more

  In haste, bearing Andromache, his prize.

  ’Tis she hath charmed these tears into mine eyes,

  Weeping her fatherland, as o’er the wave

  She gazed, and speaking words to Hector’s grave.

  Howbeit, she prayed us that due rites be done

  For burial of this babe, thine Hector’s son,

  That now from Ilion’s tower is fallen and dead.

  And, lo! this great bronze-fronted shield, the dread

  Of many a Greek, that Hector held in fray,

  O never in God’s name — so did she pray —

  Be this borne forth to hang in Pêleus’ hall

  Or that dark bridal chamber, that the wall

  May hurt her eyes; but here, in Troy o’erthrown,

  Instead of cedar wood and vaulted stone,

  Be this her child’s last house…. And in thine hands

  She bade me lay him, to be swathed in bands

  Of death and garments, such as rest to thee

  In these thy fallen fortunes; seeing that she

  Hath gone her ways, and, for her master’s haste,

  May no more fold the babe unto his rest.

  Howbeit, so soon as he is garlanded

  And robed, we will heap earth above his head

  And lift our sails…. See all be swiftly done,

  As thou art bidden. I have saved thee one

  Labour. For as I passed Scamander’s stream

  Hard by, I let the waters run on him,

  And cleansed his wounds. — See, I will go forth now

  And break the hard earth for his grave: so thou

  And I will haste together, to set free

  Our oars at last to beat the homeward sea!

  [He goes out with his Soldiers, leaving the body of the Child in HECUBA’S arms.

  HECUBA.

  Set the great orb of Hector’s shield to lie

  Here on the ground. ’Tis bitter that mine eye

  Should see it…. O ye Argives, was your spear

  Keen, and your hearts so low and cold, to fear

  This babe? ’Twas a strange murder for brave

  men!

  For fear this babe some day might raise again

&nb
sp; His fallen land! Had ye so little pride?

  While Hector fought, and thousands at his side,

  Ye smote us, and we perished; and now, now,

  When all are dead and Ilion lieth low,

  Ye dread this innocent! I deem it not

  Wisdom, that rage of fear that hath no thought….

  Ah, what a death hath found thee, little one!

  Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known

  Strong youth and love and all the majesty

  Of godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee

  As of one blessed … could in any wise

  These days know blessedness. But now thine eyes

  Have seen, thy lips have tasted, but thy soul

  No knowledge had nor usage of the whole

  Rich life that lapt thee round…. Poor little child!

  Was it our ancient wall, the circuit piled

  By loving Gods, so savagely hath rent

  Thy curls, these little flowers innocent

  That were thy mother’s garden, where she laid

  Her kisses; here, just where the bone-edge frayed

  Grins white above — Ah heaven, I will not see!

  Ye tender arms, the same dear mould have ye

  As his; how from the shoulder loose ye drop

  And weak! And dear proud lips, so full of hope

  And closed for ever! What false words ye said

  At daybreak, when he crept into my bed,

  Called me kind names, and promised: ‘Grandmother,

  When thou art dead, I will cut close my hair

  And lead out all the captains to ride by

  Thy tomb.’ Why didst thou cheat me so? ’Tis I,

  Old, homeless, childless, that for thee must shed

  Cold tears, so young, so miserably dead.

  Dear God, the pattering welcomes of thy feet,

  The nursing in my lap; and O, the sweet

  Falling asleep together! All is gone.

  How should a poet carve the funeral stone

  To tell thy story true? ‘There lieth here

  A babe whom the Greeks feared, and in their fear

  Slew him.’ Aye, Greece will bless the tale it

  tells!

  Child, they have left thee beggared of all else

  In Hector’s house; but one thing shalt thou keep,

  This war-shield bronzen-barred, wherein to sleep.

  Alas, thou guardian true of Hector’s fair

  Left arm, how art thou masterless! And there

  I see his handgrip printed on thy hold;

  And deep stains of the precious sweat, that rolled

  In battle from the brows and beard of him,

  Drop after drop, are writ about thy rim.

  Go, bring them — such poor garments hazardous

  As these days leave. God hath not granted us

  Wherewith to make much pride. But all I can,

  I give thee, Child of Troy. — O vain is man,

  Who glorieth in his joy and hath no fears:

  While to and fro the chances of the years