PERSONS REPRESENTED. GHOST OF POLYDORE, HECUBA. CHORUS OF FEMALE CAPTIVES. POLYXENA. ULYSSES. TALTHYBIUS. FEMALE ATTENDANT. AGAMEMNON. POLYMESTOR AND HIS CHILDREN. The scene lies before the Grecian tents, on the coast of the Thracian Chersonese. THE ARGUMENT. AFTER the capture of Troy, the Greeks put into the Chersonese over against Troas. But Achilles, having appeared dy night, demanded one of the daughters of Priam to be slain. The Greeks therefore, in honour to their hero, tore Polyxena from Hecuba, and offered her up in sacrifice. Polymestor moreover, the king of the Thracians, murdered Polydore a son of Priam's. Now Polymestor had received him from the hands of Priam, as a charge to take care of, together with some money. But when the city was taken, wishing to seize upon his wealth, he determined to despatch him, and disregarded the ill-fated friendship that subsisted between them; but his body being cast out into the sea, the wave threw him up on the shore before the tents of the captive women. Hecuba, on seeing the corse, recognized it; and having imparted her design to Agamemnon, sent for Polymestor to come to her with his sons, concealing what had happened, under pretence that she might discover to him some treasures hidden in Ilium. But on his arrival she slew his sons, and put out his eyes; but pleading her cause before the Greeks, she gained it over her accuser (Polymestor). For it was decided that she did not begin the cruelty, but only avenged herself on him who did begin it. HECUBA. GHOST OF POLYDORE. I AM present, having left the secret dwelling of the dead and the gates of darkness, where Pluto has his abode apart from the other Gods, Polydore the son of Hecuba the daughter of Cisseusa, and Priam my sire, who after that the danger of falling by the spear of Greece threatened the city of the Phrygians, in fear, privately sent me from the Trojan land to the house of Polymestor, his Thracian friend, who cultivates the most fruitful soil of the Chersonese, ruling a warlike people with his spear. But my father sends privately with me a large quantity of gold, in order that, if at any time the walls of Troy should fall, there might not be a lack of sustenance for his surviving children. But I was the youngest of the sons of Priam; on which account also he sent me privately from the land, for I was able neither to bear arms nor the spear with my youthful arm. As long then indeed as the landmarks of the country remained erect, and the towers of Troy were a Homer makes Dymas, not Cisseus, the father of Hecuba. Virgil however follows Euripides, the rest of the Latin poets Virgil. In the martial time of antiquity the spear was reverenced as something divine, and signified the chief command in arms, it was also the insigne of the highest civil authority: in this sense Euripides in other places uses the word dópv. See Hippol. 988. unshaken, and Hector my brother prevailed with his spear, wretch that I was, I increased vigorously as some fair branch, by the nurture I received, at the hands of the Thracian, my father's friend. But after that both Troy and the life of Hector were put an end to, and my father's mansions razed to the ground, and himself falls at the altar built by the God, slain by the bloodpolluted son of Achilles, the friend of my father slays me, wretched man, for the sake of my gold, and having slain me threw me into the surf of the sea, that he might possess the gold himself in his palace. But I am exposed on the shore, at another time on the ocean's surge, borne about by many ebbings and flowings of the waves, unwept, unburied; but at present I am hastening on my dear mother's account, having left my body, borne aloft this day already the third, for so long has my wretched mother been present in this territory of the Chersonese from Troy. But all the Grecians, holding their ships at anchor, are sitting quiet on the shores of this land of Thrace. For Achilles the son of Peleus, appearing above his tomb, stayed all the army of the Grecians as they were directing homeward their sea-dipt oars; and asks to receive my sister Polyxena as a dear victim, and a tribute of honour to his tomb. And this he will obtain, nor will he be without this gift from his friends; and fate this day leads forth my sister to death. But my mother will see the two corses of her two children, both mine and the unhappy virgin's; for I shall appear on a breaker before the feet of a female slave, that I wretched may obtain sepulture; for I have successfully с Tρiratos properly signifies triduanus: here it is used for rpiros, the cardinal number for the ordinal. So also Hippol. 275. Πῶς δ ̓ οὐ, τριταίαν γ ̓ οὖσ ἄσιτος ἡμέραν : |