Cho. What sweet relief to sufferers 'tis to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!
And. Dost thou see this, mother of that Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?
Hec. I see that it is heaven's way to exalt what men accounted naught, and ruin what they most esteemed.
And. Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are to slavery brought—a bitter, bitter change.
Hec. This is necessity's grim law; it was but now Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.
And. Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias hath appeared to wrong thy daughter; but there be other ills for thee.
Hec. Ay, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.
And. Thy daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles' tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.
Hec. O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long since told me, a truth obscurely uttered.
And. I saw her with mine eyes; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and smote upon my breast.
Hec. Alas! my child, for thy unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, ah me! for this thy shameful death!
And. Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than this my life.
Hec. Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.
And. Hear, O mother[1] of children! give ear to what I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit. 'Tis all one, I say, ne'er to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his spirit
- ↑ Musgrave reads οὐ for the second ὦ. Dindorf rejects the first line of this speech.
