Hecuba: O these hands, lying all broken at the joints,
Such sweet remembrances of your father’s hands!
This dear mouth was once so free with braggart
Promises, but it is silent now. You deceived me
When you clung tight to my robes and said, ‘O
Mother, when you are dead, I shall cut a big lock of
My hair and I shall bring troops of friends
To your grave and address you with loving words.’
But it is not you who will bury me. No it is
I who shall bury your pitiable corpse, an old
Woman, who has lost her city and her children,
Giving burial to a mere boy.
Alas! All those embraces, all the care I
Lavished on you, all those broken nights – gone,
Gone! What could
a poet write about you
On your grave?
‘The Argives once killed this
Child because they feared him’? An epitaph
To bring shame on Greece!
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