Captive women of Troy await exile

Θρηνῳδία

Poem·about 2 min

"O fair wind blowing from the sea!"
The captive women of Troy
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Poem

(Eur. Hec., 444⁠–⁠483)

Song sung by captive women of Troy on the sea beach at Aulis, while the Achaeans were there storm-bound through the wrath of dishonoured Achilles, and waiting for a fair wind to bring them home.

Στροφή

O fair wind blowing from the sea!Who through the dark and mist dost guideThe ships that on the billows ride,Unto what land, ah, misery!Shall I be borne, across what stormy wave,Or to whose house a purchased slave?

O sea-wind blowing fair and fastIs it unto the Dorian strand,Or to those far and fable shores,Where great Apidanus outpoursHis streams upon the fertile land,Or shall I tread the Phthian sand,Borne by the swift breath of the blast?

Άντιστροφή

O blowing wind! you bring my sorrow near,For surely borne with splashing of the oar,And hidden in some galley-prison drearI shall be led unto that distant shoreWhere the tall palm-tree first took root, and made,With clustering laurel leaves, a pleasant shadeFor Leto when with travail great she boreA god and goddess in Love’s bitter fight,Her body’s anguish, and her soul’s delight.

It may be in Delos,Encircled of seas,I shall sing with some maidsFrom the Cyclades,Of Artemis goddessAnd queen and maiden,Sing of the goldIn her hair heavy-laden.Sing of her hunting,Her arrows and bow,And in singing find solaceFrom weeping and woe.

Στροφή Β

Or it may be my bitter doomTo stand a handmaid at the loom,In distant Athens of supreme renown;And weave some wondrous tapestry,Or work in bright embroidery,Upon the crocus-flowered robe and saffron-coloured gown,The flying horses wrought in gold,The silver chariot onward rolledThat bears Athena through the Town;Or the warring giants that strove to climbFrom earth to heaven to reign as kings,And Zeus the conquering son of TimeBorne on the hurricane’s eagle wings;And the lightning flame and the bolts that fellFrom the risen cloud at the god’s behest,And hurled the rebels to darkness of hell,To a sleep without slumber or waking or rest.

Άντιστροφή Β

Alas! our children’s sorrow, and their painIn slavery.Alas! our warrior sires nobly slainFor liberty.Alas! our country’s glory, and the nameOf Troy’s fair town;By the lances and the fighting and the flameTall Troy is down.

I shall pass with my soul over-laden,To a land far away and unseen,For Asia is slave and handmaiden,Europa is Mistress and Queen.Without love, or love’s holiest treasure,I shall pass into Hades abhorred,To the grave as my chamber of pleasure,To death as my Lover and Lord.

Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0 1.0)

In brief

Summary

The Greek title means a song of lament, and the subtitle points to Euripides' Hecuba. A prose heading explains that captive women of Troy sing it on the beach at Aulis, where the Achaean fleet lies storm-bound, waiting for a wind to carry it home. The women ask the sea-wind where they will be taken as slaves: to Dorian or Phthian shores, to Delos, where they might sing of Artemis, or to Athens, to embroider Athena's robe at the loom. The last part mourns their children, their dead fathers and fallen Troy, and ends with the singer passing into Hades with death as her lover.

Key themes

"Tall Troy is down."
The captive women of Troy

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Summary

A prose heading sets the scene: captive Trojan women sing on the beach at Aulis while the Achaeans lie storm-bound 'through the wrath of dishonoured Achilles', waiting for a fair wind. In the first strophe the women call on the 'fair wind blowing from the sea' and ask where it will carry them, 'Or to whose house a purchased slave'. They name possible shores: the Dorian strand, the fertile lands watered by the Apidanus, or 'the Phthian sand'.

The antistrophe imagines a voyage 'hidden in some galley-prison drear' to the shore where the palm first took root to shade Leto as she bore 'A god and goddess'. Perhaps at Delos, the singer thinks, she will sing with maids of the Cyclades about Artemis, her golden hair, her hunting and her bow, 'And in singing find solace / From weeping and woe.' The second strophe offers another fate: to stand as a handmaid at a loom in Athens, embroidering the robe that shows Athena's silver chariot and the war in which Zeus hurled the rebel giants down to hell.

The second antistrophe turns to open mourning. The women cry 'Alas!' for their children in slavery, for their 'warrior sires nobly slain / For liberty' and for the glory of their city: 'Tall Troy is down.' The singer foresees passing 'To a land far away and unseen', since Asia is now handmaid to Europe, and going without love into 'Hades abhorred', taking the grave as her chamber and death as her 'Lover and Lord'.

Characters

  • The captive women of Troy

    The chorus of slaves

    Trojan women taken as prizes of war and held on the beach at Aulis while the Achaean ships wait for a wind. They sing in one voice, often as 'I', asking where they will be sold, imagining lives of labour and song, and mourning their children, their dead and their fallen city.

Themes

Captivity and the unknown shore

The song is built on a question it cannot answer: 'Unto what land, ah, misery! / Shall I be borne'. The women can only list possibilities, the Dorian strand, the Phthian sand, Delos, Athens, because their future belongs to whoever buys them, 'to whose house a purchased slave'. The wind that the Achaeans long for is, to them, the wind of exile.

Song as consolation

Even as slaves the women imagine making art. At Delos they might sing of Artemis, 'And in singing find solace / From weeping and woe', and at Athens they might weave the stories of the gods into Athena's robe. Song and craft offer them a small refuge, but the last stanza shows its limits: the singer ends not in solace but in 'Hades abhorred'.

The fall of a nation

The second antistrophe widens the grief from one woman to her people: children 'In slavery', 'warrior sires nobly slain / For liberty', 'our country's glory'. The short lines fall like blows, ending with 'Tall Troy is down.' The defeat then becomes a turn of history: 'For Asia is slave and handmaiden, / Europa is Mistress and Queen.'

Quotes

Every line is copied from the text and links to where it appears.

Context

The Greek title means a song of lament, and the subtitle cites lines 444 to 483 of Euripides' Hecuba, marking the poem as an English version of a choral ode from that play. A prose heading before the verse sets the scene at Aulis. Like 'Chorus of Cloud Maidens', the poem keeps the Greek divisions of the ode, with Greek headings for strophe and antistrophe, here in two pairs.

About this edition

  • Text: the complete work from Standard Ebooks, released into the public domain (CC0 1.0). We change only the layout.
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  • Every quotation and glossary word in these notes is checked against the text.