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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HECUBA: TROY by EURIPIDES

First Line: MY FATHERLAND, O MY TROY!
Last Line: HOME, TO HER FATHER'S COUNTRY.
Subject(s): TROY;
My fatherland, O my Troy!
None shall hail thee now, the impregnable city,
Shrouded, compassed round by the host of Hellas,
By the spear of the spoiler.
They have shorn from thy brow the beauty,
Thy towers. We have seen thy ways
Ravaged, smirched by the smoke of ruin,
Alas! Ways that are mine no longer.

In the night was my sorrow born,
When the feast was done, at the hour when the weary
Turn to sleep. Ah sweet! when the song and the dancing
And the worship were over,
And my lord in the bower was waiting;
His spear on the wall, at rest;
No more watch at the ships, no longer
Trampling feet in the Trojan city;

And I in ribands and laces caught
And twined the tresses of my hair,
And read the dim glad secret
The haze of my mirror told,
Of a bride and a happy lover, waiting . . .
A stir in the city, and a noise,
A shout that rang in the streets of Troy,
Crying 'Up,
Sons of Grecian sires, it is time, it is time!
Will ye not ravage and sack
Troy's tower and turn you homeward?'

I left the bed of my lord, I ran,
In the shift of a Dorian maid, ungirt;
I sought thy shrine, in vain;
Goddess, Artemis! All in vain!
For they took me, they slew my lord, I saw him,
My lord, and they dragged me to the sea
Still gazing back to Troy. . . . The ship
Homeward bound
Strained her tackling eagerly, bearing me on
Far from the land of my love,
Ah grief! my spirit left me,

And, fainting, cried my curse upon Helen, my curse on fatal Paris --
Herdsman of Ida, and sister of the sons of Zeus.
Torn from that ruined fatherland,
Outcast from home, I curse her, the bride who was not a bride, but a fiend, a
fury,
And pray that the waves of the sea may not carry her again safe home,
Never more
Home, to her father's country.



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