Must not the mothers touch their sons?TheseusIt would kill them to see how they are altered.Adrastus’Tis bitter, truly, to see the dead evenThe MS. reading, χἄμα τῷ τέλει νεκρῶν has been conjecturally altered by Toup into αἶμα κώτειλαὶ νεκρῶν which bold emendation has been followed by several editors. Hartung has χρῶμα κὠτειλαὶ. at the moment of death.TheseusWhy then wilt thou add fresh grief to them?AdrastusThou art right. YeNauck brackets from μένειν—θησεύς as spurious. needs must patiently abide, for the words of Theseus are good. But when we have committed them unto the flames, ye shall collect their bones. O wretched sons of men! Why do ye get you weapons and bring slaughter on one another? Cease therefrom, give o’er your toiling, and in mutual peace keep safe your cities. Short is the span of life, so ’twere best to run its course as lightly as we may, from trouble free.
ChorusNo more a happy mother I, with children blest; no more I share, among Argive women, who have sons, their happy lot; nor any more will Artemis in the hour of travail kindly greet these childless mothers. Most dreary is my life, and like some wandering cloud I drift before the howling blast.
ChorusThe seven noblest sons in Argos once we had, we seven hapless mothers; but now my sons are dead, I have no child, and on me steals old age in piteous wise, nor ’mongst the dead nor ’mongst the living do I countDindorf, followed by Nauck, reads κρινομένα. myself, having as it were a lot apart from these. ChorusTears alone are left me; in my house sad memories of my son are stored; mournful tresses shorn from his head, chaplets that he wore, libations for the dead departed, and songs, but not such as golden-haired Apollo welcometh; and when I wake to weep, my tears will ever drench the folds of my robe upon my bosom.
ChorusAh! there I see the sepulchre ready e’en now for Capaneus, his consecrated tomb, and the votive offerings Theseus gives unto the dead outside the shrine, and nigh yon lightning-smitten chief I see his noble bride, Evadne, daughter of King Iphis. Wherefore stands she on the towering rock, which o’ertops this temple, advancing along yon path?
EvadneWhat light, what radiancy did the sun-god’s car dart forth, and the moon athwart the firmament, while round her in the gloom swift starsNone of the proposed emendations of this corrupt passage are convincing. Hermann’s λάμπαι δ’ ὠκύθοοί νιν ἀμφιππεύουσι is here followed. Nauck has λαμπαδ’ ἱν’ ὠκυθόαι νύμφαι ἱππεύουσι. careered,