t desirous of obtaining greater ills.

POLY. Kill me, for the murderous bath at Argos awaits thee.

AGA. Will ye not, slaves, forcibly drag him from my presence?

POLY. Thou art galled at what thou hearest.

AGA. Will ye not stop his mouth?

POLY. Stop it: for the word is spoken.

AGA. Will ye not as quick as possible cast him out on some desert island,
since he is thus, and past endurance insolent? But do thou, wretched
Hecuba, go and bury thy two dead: and you, O Trojan dames, must approach
your masters' tents, for I perceive that the gales are favorable for
wafting us to our homes. And may we sail in safety to our native country,
and behold our household and families in prosperity, having found rest from
these toils.

CHOR. Come, my friends, to the harbor, and the tents, to undergo the tasks
imposed by our masters. For necessity is relentless.

* * * * *

NOTES ON HECUBA

* * * *

[1] Homer makes Dymas, not Cisseus, the father of Hecuba. Virgil however
follows Euripides, the rest of the Latin poets Virgil.

[2] In the martial time of antiquity the spear was reverenced as something
divine, and signified the chief command in arms, it was also the insigne of
the highest civil authority: in this sense Euripides in other places uses
the word [Greek: dory]. See Hippol. 988.

[3] [Greek: tritaios] properly signifies _triduanus_; here it is used for
[Greek: tritos], the cardinal number for the ordinal. So also Hippol. 275.

[Greek: Pos d' ou, tritaian g' ous' asitos hemeran:]

[4] Most interpreters render this, _leaning on the crooked staff with my
hand_. Nor has Beck altered it in his Latin version, though he transcribed
Musgrave's note. "[Greek: skolio, skimponi] (_for which Porson directs_
[Greek: skiponi],) Scipiones in universum recti sunt, non curvi. Loquitur
igitur non de vero scipione, sed metaphorice de brachio, quod ancillis
innitens, scipionis usum praestabat; quodque, ob cubiti flexuram, [Greek:
skolion skimpoma] vocat."

[5] _that babbling knave_.] Tzetzes on Lycophron, line 763. [Greek: kopis,
ho rhetor, kai empeiros, ho hypo pollon pragmaton kekommenos]. In the Index
to Lycophron [Greek: kopis] is translated _scurra_.

[6] Among the ancients it was the custom for virgins to have a great
quantity of golden ornaments about them, to which Homer alludes, Il.
[Greek: B]. 872.

[Greek: Hos kai chryson echon polemon d' ien euete koure].