Sorrows heavy enough to bear.AdrastusAh me!ChorusThy groans mingle with those of their parents.Reading with Hartung τοῖς τεκοῦσς’ ὁμοῦ λέγεις.AdrastusHear me.Chorus O’er both of us thou dost lament.AdrastusWould God the Theban ranks had laid me dead in the dust!ChorusOh that I had ne’er been wedded to a husband! AdrastusBehold this sea of troubles!The print edition reads: Ah! hapless mothers, behold this sea of troubles! The lines have been modified to more closely match the Greek.Ah! hapless mothers.ChorusOur nails have ploughed our cheeks in furrows, and o’er our heads have we strewn ashes.AdrastusAh me! ah me! Oh that earth’s floor would swallow me, or the whirlwind snatch me away, or Zeus’s flaming bolt descend upon my head!ChorusBitter the marriages thou didst witness, bitter the oracle of Phoebus! The curse of Oedipus, fraught with sorrow, after desolatingFor the unintelligible ἔλημας of the MS. Hermann conjectured ἔρημα σ’ which is here followed. his house, is come on thee.
TheseusThere is some corruption in the three following lines. Nauck’s εἴασα for the words ἐς τὰ σά γε makes it possible to extract meaning, but further emendation is needed. Nauck would omit the word στρατῷ in l. 838 and the whole of l. 839, except the word γόους. I meant to question thee when thou wert venting thy lamentations to the host, but I will let it pass; yet, though I dropped the matter then and left it alone, I now do ask Adrastus, Of what lineage sprang those youths, to shine so bright in chivalry? Tell it to our younger citizens of thy fuller wisdom, for thou art skilled to know. Myself beheld their daring deeds, too high for words to tell,