Six Tragedies by Seneca

Author:Seneca [Seneca]
Language: fra
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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108

trojan women

give more than her usual short reply,

110

may she echo all Troy’s cries of pain;

let all the ocean hear it, all the sky.

Hands, go wild:

beat my breasts as hard as you can.

The usual noise is not enough for me.

We weep for Hector.

hecuba My hand beats my arms for you,

for you it beats my back, already bloody,

for you my hands attack my head,

for you your mother’s hands have harmed

120

your mother’s breasts.

I hurt myself when you died: let the scars from those wounds

burst open and flow in a stream of plentiful blood.

You were our country’s pillar, you delayed our destiny,

you were safety to the Trojans when they tired,

you were our wall, our strong support, whose back

lifted the city up for ten long years.

Troy fell when you did: Hector’s day of death

was also his city’s end.

Now change your lamentation.

130

Shed your tears for Priam.

Hector has enough.

chorus King of Phrygia, let us give you tears:

accept our weeping, old man, twice defeated.*

Troy’s sufferings in your reign were never single.

Twice Trojan walls were battered by Greek arms,

twice the bow of Hercules* was turned on Troy.

After Hecuba’s royal children died, you last of all,

their father finished the line of death. You lie on Trojan sand,

a sacrifice slaughtered to great Jupiter,

140

a headless corpse.

hecuba Now turn your tears to someone else.

The death of my Priam is not so sad,

Trojan women.

Say it, all of you: ‘Priam was lucky.’

He went down free to the land of the dead,

he will never have to carry the Greek yoke on his neck in defeat.

He does not have to look at the sons of Atreus,

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