Alcestis
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.
- wail for the best of women, as with sickness worn she passes ’neath the earth to Hades, lord below.
- Never, never will I say that marriage brings more joy than grief, as I
- conjecture by the past and witness these misfortunes of our king, for he when widowed of this noble wife will for the future lead a life that is no life at all.
- O sun-god, lamp of day!
- O scudding clouds that dance along the sky!
- He sees us both with anguish bowed, albeit guiltless of any crime against the gods, for the which thy death is due.
- O earth, O sheltering roof, and ye my maiden chambers in my native land Iolcos!
- Lift thyself, unhappy wife, forsake me not; entreat the mighty gods to pity us.
- I see the two-oared skiff, I see it; and Charon, death’s ferryman, his hand upon the boatman’s pole,
- is calling me e’en now, Why lingerest thou? Hasten. Thou art keeping me. Thus in his eager haste he hurries me.
- Ah me! bitter to me is this voyage thou speakest of. Unhappy wife, what woes are ours!
- One draws me, draws me hence, seest thou not?
- to the courts of death, winged Hades glaring from beneath his dark brows. What wilt thou with me? Unhand me. On what a journey am I setting out, most wretched woman I!
- Bitter journey to thy friends, yet most of all to me
- and to thy babes, the partners in this sorrow.
- Hands off! hands off at once! Lay me down, I cannot stand. Hades standeth near; and with its gloom steals night upon my eyes.
- O my children, my children, ye have no mother now. Fare ye well, my babes, live on beneath the light!
- Woe is me! this is a message of sorrow to me, worse than aught that death can do.
- Steel not thy heart to leave me, I implore, by heaven, by thy babes whom thou wilt make orphans; nay, raise thyself, have courage. For if thou die I can no longer live; my life, my death are in thy hands; thy love is what I worship.
- Admetus, lo! thou seest how it is with me; to thee I fain would tell my wishes ere I die. Thee I set before myself, and instead of living have ensured thy life, and so I die, though I need not have died for thee,