Hecuba

By Coleridge, E. P.

Book Id: WPLBN0000628201
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 53.28 KB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Hecuba
Author:	Coleridge, E. P.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Coleridge, E. (n.d.). Hecuba. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.us/

Description
Excerpt: GHOST. Lo! I AM come from out the charnel?house and gates of gloom, where Hades dwells apart from gods, I Polydorus, a son of Hecuba the daughter of Cisseus and of Priam. Now my father, when Phrygia?s capital was threatened with destruction by the spear of Hellas, took alarm and conveyed me secretly from the land of Troy unto Polymestor?s house, his friend in Thrace, who sows these fruitful plains of Chersonese, curbing by his might a nation delighting in horses. And with me my father sent great store of gold by stealth, that, if ever Ilium?s walls should fall, his children that survived might not want for means to live. I was the youngest of Priam?s sons; and this it was that caused my stealthy removal from the land; for my childish arm availed not to carry weapons or to wield the spear. So long then as the bulwarks of our land stood firm, and Troy?s battlements abode unshaken, and my brother Hector prospered in his warring, I, poor child, grew up and flourished, like some vigorous shoot, at the court of the Thracian, my father?s friend. But when Troy fell and Hector lost his life and my father?s hearth was rooted up, and himself fell butchered at the god?built altar by the hands of Achilles? murderous son; then did my father?s friend slay me his helpless guest for the sake of the gold, and thereafter cast me into the swell of the sea, to keep the gold for himself in his house. And there I lie one time upon the strand, another in the salt sea?s surge, drifting ever up and down upon the billows, unwept, unburied; but now am I hovering o?er the head of my dear mother Hecuba, a disembodied spirit, keeping my airy station these three days, ever since my poor mother came from Troy to linger here in Chersonese. Meantime all the Achaeans sit idly here in their ships at the shores of Thrace; for the son of Peleus, even Achilles, appeared above his tomb and stayed the whole host of Hellas, as they were making straight for home across the sea, demanding to have my sister Polyxena offered at his tomb, and to receive his guerdon. And he will obtain this prize, nor will they that are his friends refuse the gift; and on this very day is fate leading my sister to her doom.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: HECUBA, 1 -- by Euripides, 1