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.
- What induced thee to select this alliance?
- Dark riddles of Phoebus stole away my judgment.
- What said Apollo to determine the maidens’ marriage?
- That I should give my daughters twain to a wild boar and a lion.
- How dost thou explain the message of the god?
- One night came to my door two exiles.
- The name of each declare; thou art speaking of both together.
- They fought together, Tydeus with Polynices.
- Didst thou give thy daughters to them as to wild beasts?
- Yea, for, as they fought, I likened them to those monsters twain.
- Why had they left the borders of their native land and come to thee?
- Tydeus was exiled for the murder of a kinsman.
- Wherefore had the son of Oedipus left Thebes?
- By reason of his father’s curse, not to spill his brother’s blood.
- Wise no doubt that voluntary exile.
- But those who stayed at home were for injuring the absent.
- What! did brother rob brother of his inheritance?
- To avenge this I set out; hence my ruin.
- Didst consult seers, and gaze into the flame of burnt-offerings?
- Ah me! thou pressest on the very point, wherein I most did fail.