The Suppliant Maidens
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.
- Turned to ashes by the flame, they have winged their flight to Hades.[*](These lines are assigned to the Chorus in the Greek.)
- Father, thou hearest thy children’s lamentation; say, shall I e’er, as warrior dight, avenge thy slaughter?
- God grant it, O my child!
- Some day, if god so will, shall the avenging of my father be my task; not yet this sorrow sleeps.
- Alas! Fortune’s sorrows are enough for me, I have troubles and to spare already.
- Shall Asopus’ laughing tide ever reflect my brazen arms as I lead on my Argive troops?
- To avenge thy fallen sire.
- Methinks I see thee still before my eyes, my father—
- Printing a loving kiss upon thy cheek.
- But thy words of exhortation are borne on the winds away.
- Two mourners hath he left behind, thy mother and thee, bequeathing to thee an endless legacy of grief for thy father.
- The weight of grief I have to bear hath crushed me utterly.
- Come, let me clasp the ashes of my son to my bosom.
- I weep to hear that piteous word; it stabs me to the heart.
- My child, thou art undone; no more shall I behold thee, thy own fond mother’s treasure.
- Adrastus, and ye dames from Argos sprung, ye see these children bearing in their hands the bodies of their valiant sires whom I redeemed; to thee I give these gifts, I and Athens. And ye must bear in mind the memory of this favour,
- marking well the treatment ye have had of me. And to these children I repeat the self-same words, that they may honour this city, to children’s children ever handing on the kindness ye received from us. Be Zeus the witness, with the gods in heaven,
- of the treatment we vouchsafed you ere you left us.
- Theseus, well we know all the kindness thou hast conferred upon the land of Argos in her need, and ours shall be a gratitude that never waxeth old, for your generous treatment makes us debtors for a like return.
- What yet remains, wherein I can serve you?