Chorus Leader
What sweet relief to sufferers it is to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!
Andromache
[610]
Do you see this, mother of that man, Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?
Hecuba
I see that it is heaven's way to exalt what men accounted nothing, and ruin what they most esteemed.
Andromache
Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble
[615]
are brought to slavery—a bitter change.
Hecuba
This is necessity's grim law; it was just now that Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.
Andromache
Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias has appeared to wrong your daughter; but there are other ills for you.
Hecuba
[620]
Yes, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.
Andromache
Your daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles' tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.
Hecuba
O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius
[625]
long ago told me, a truth obscurely uttered.
Andromache
I saw her myself; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and struck upon my breast.
Hecuba
Alas! my child, for your unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, alas! for your shameful death!
Andromache
[630]
Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than my life.
Hecuba
Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.