CHORUS: Come away, dear ones, come away.
To the camp, to the place of the ships, to the sea,
To the strange new life of slavery,
For all are the slaves of Destiny.[ΧΟΡΟΣ: ἴτε πρὸς λιμένας σκηνάς τε, φίλαι,
τῶν δεσποσύνων πειρασόμεναι
μόχθων: στερρὰ γὰρ ἀνάγκη.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Hecuba [Hekabe; Ἑκάβη], l. 1293ff (c. 424 BC) [tr. Sheppard (1924)]
(Source)
Closing lines, as the Trojan women captives (including Hecuba) are taken back to Greece.
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:To the haven go,
And to the tents, my friends, t'endure the toils
Our lords impose: for thus harsh fate enjoins.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]Come, my friends, to the harbor, and the tents, to undergo the tasks imposed by our masters. For necessity is relentless.
[tr. Edwards (1826)]To the tents, O friends, to the haven fare;
The yoke of thraldom our necks must bear.
Fate knows not pity, fate will not spare.
[tr. Way (Loeb) (1894)]Away to the harbour and the tents, my friends, to prove the toils of slavery! for such is fate's relentless hest.
[tr. Coleridge (1938)]File to the tents,
file to the harbor.
There we embark
on life as slaves.
Necessity is harsh.
Fate has no reprieve.
[tr. Arrowsmith (1958)]Go to the shoreline and our masters' tents. Find out from them what work we're forced to do. We've got no choice. No choice at all. We're slaves.
[tr. Harrison (2005)]Go, my friends! Go to the ports and to the tents, my friends! Go and taste the hardship of slavery!
[tr. Theodoridis (2007)]-- To the harbor now. -- To the tents.
-- It is time to embark. -- It is time to board
our new lives as slaves. -- But the taste
is bitter. -- Necessity is hard.
[tr. Karden/Street (2011)]

