SONG OF THE CAPTIVE TROJAN MAIDEN (from "Hecuba")

by: Euripides

REEZE, breeze of the sea,

Who the wave-passers bearest home

Swift and unwearied o'er the billows' foam,

Ah! whither lead'st thou me

Grief-worn? whose house must have

This thing -- a captured slave?

 

Or shall I reach a harbor strand

Dorian of Phthian, where they tell

Apidanos o'erstreams the land,

Father of fairest founts that well?

 

Or else some island shore,

Urged, wretched, on my way with brine-splashed oar,

To lead a life of weary sorrow there,

Where the first palm bare fruit,

Where the bay raised each sacred shoot

To form a bower,

Leto's protection in her trial of hour?

 

Or shall I, like Delian maiden,

Sing of Artemis divine,

Golden-filleted, bow-laden?

Or at Pallas' sacred shrine

The steeds to her fair chariot yoke

To bear her, clad in saffron cloak,

And braid the silken garments thin

With saffron flowerets woven in?

 

Or shall I sing the Titan brood,

Whom Zeus, great Kronos' son,

Poured twice-forged fire upon,

And did to lasting sleep by that fell bolt and rude?

 

Ah, sorrow for the young,

For those whose life was long,

For all the land,

A heap of smoking ruin,

Spear-pierced to her undoing

By Argive hand!

 

And I shall be a slave

Within a country not my own,

Leaving the land that Europe has o'erthrown,

'Scaping the chambers of the grave.

• The Age of Euripides - A look at the political and religious atmosphere in which Euripides composed his plays.
• Euripides - A biography and list of related links.
• Euripides - A biographical sketch of the Greek dramatist.
• Euripides (c. 480-406 B.C.) - A biography.
• Euripides and His Tragedies - Biography of the Greek dramatist and analysis of his poetic qualities.
• Euripides: Monologues - A collection of monologues for actors.
• Innovations of Euripides - Technically Euripides seems to have taken as many liberties as were possible at a time when the plays of Sophocles were set up as the inevitable model.
• Purchase books by Euripides