HECUBA. 149 because of misfortune, but ever the same? Is then the difference due to birth or bringing up? Good training doubtless gives lessons in good conduct, and if a man have mastered this, he knows what is base by the standard of good. Random shafts of my soul's shooting these, I know. (To Talthybius.) Go thou and proclaim to the Argives that they touch not my daughter's body but keep the crowd away. For when a countless host is gathered, the mob knows no restraint^ and the unruliness of sailors exceeds that of fire, all abstinence from crime being counted crimi- nal. [JExU Talthybius. (Addressing a servanf.) My aged handmaid, take a pitcher and dip it in the salt sea and bring hither thereof, that I for the last time may wash my child, a virgin wife, a widowed maid,^ and lay her out, — as she deserves, ah ! whence can I ? impossible ! but as best I can ; and what will that amount to ? I will collect adornment from the captives, my companions in these tents, if haply any of them escaping her master's eye have some secret ^ store from her old home. O towering halls, O home so happy once, O Priam, rich in store of fairest wealth, most blest of sires, and I no less, the grey-haired mother of thy race, how are we brought to naught, stripped of our former pride ! And spite of all we vaunt ourselves, one on the riches of his house, another because he has an honoured name amongst his fellow- citizens ! But these things are naught ; in vain are all our thoughtful schemes, in vain our vaunting words. He is happiest who meets no sorrow in his daily walk. [Ex/^ Hecuba. Cho. Woe and tribulation were made my lot in life, soon as ever Paris felled his beams of pine in Ida's woods, to sail across the heaving main in quest of Helen's hand, fairest
- If this line is genuine, ^t may be an allusion to her betrothal to
Achilles.
- K(fifia ; Nauck proposes KTiifia.
