ill forsooth we are
elated, one of us in his gorgeous palaces; another, when honored among his
citizens. These are nothing. In vain the counsels of the mind, and the
tongue's boast. He is most blest, to whom from day to day no evil happens.

CHORUS.

Against me was it fated that calamity, against me was it fated that woe
should spring, when Paris first hewed the pine in Ida's forest, preparing
to cut his way over the ocean surge to the bed of Helen, the fairest that
the sun's golden beams shine upon. For toils, and fate more stern than
toils, close us round: and from the folly of one came a public calamity
fatal to the land of Simois, and woes springing from other woes: and when
the dispute was decided, which the shepherd decided between the three
daughters of the blessed Gods on Ida's top, for war, and slaughter, and the
desolation of my palaces. And many a Spartan virgin at her home on the
banks of the fair-flowing Eurotas sighs while bathed in tears: and many an
aged matron strikes her hand against her hoary head, for her children who
have perished, and tears her cheek making her nails all blood-stained with
her wounds.

FEMALE ATTENDANT, CHORUS, HECUBA.

ATT. O attendants, where, I pray, is the all-wretched Hecuba, who surpasses
the whole race of man and woman kind in calamities? no one shall wrest from
her the crown.

CHOR. But what dost thou want, O wretch, in thy words of ill omen? for thy
messages of woe never rest.

ATT. I bring this grief to Hecuba; but in calamity 'tis no easy thing for
men to speak words of good import.

CHOR. And see, she is coming out of the house, and appears in the right
time for thy words.

ATT. O all-wretched mistress, and yet still more wretched than I can
express in words, thou art undone, and no longer beholdest the light,
childless, husbandless, cityless, entirely destroyed.

HEC. Thou has said nothing new, but hast reproached me who already know it:
but why dost thou bring this corse of my Polyxena, whose sepulture was
reported to me as in a state of active progress through the labors of all
the Grecians?

ATT. She nothing knows, but, woe's me! laments Polyxena, nor does she
apprehend her new misfortunes.

HEC. O wretched me! dost bring hither the body of the frantic and inspired
Cassandra?

ATT. She whom thou mentionedst, lives; but thou dost not weep for him who
is dead; but behold this corse cast naked [on the shore,] and look if it
will appear to thee a wonder,