Hecuba
A noble speech, my daughter! but there is sorrow linked with its noble sentiments. Odysseus, if you must please the son of Peleus, and avoid reproach,
[385]
do not slay this maid, but lead me to Achilles' pyre and torture me unsparingly; it was I that bore Paris, whose fatal shaft laid low the son of Thetis.
Odysseus
It is not your death, my lady, that Achilles' ghost
[390]
has demanded of the Achaeans, but hers.
Hecuba
At least then slaughter me with my child; so shall there be a double drink of blood for the earth and the dead that claims this sacrifice.
Odysseus
The maiden's death suffices; no need to add
[395]
a second to the first; would we did not need even this!
Hecuba
Die with my daughter I must and will.
Odysseus
How so? I did not know I had a master.
Hecuba
I will cling to her like ivy to an oak.
Odysseus
Not if you will listen to those who are wiser than you.
Hecuba
[400]
Be sure I will never willingly relinquish my child.
Odysseus
Well, be equally sure I will never go away and leave her here.
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Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Hecuba, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.
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