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.
- for this is but her due.
- My children, ye with your own ears have heard your father’s promise, that he will never wed another wife to set her over you, nor e’er dishonour me.
- Yea, so I promise now, and accomplish it I will.
- On these conditions receive the children from my hand.
- I receive them, dear pledges by a dear hapd given.
- Take thou my place and be a mother to these babes.
- Sore will be their need when they are reft of thee.
- O my children, I am passing to that world below, when my life was needed most.
- Ah me, what can I do bereft of thee?
- Thy sorrow Time will soothe; ’tis the dead who are as naught.
- Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee ’neath the earth.
- Enough that I in thy stead am dying.
- O Destiny! of what a wife art thou despoiling me!
- Lo! the darkness deepens on my drooping eyes.
- Lost indeed am I, if thou, dear wife, wilt really leave me.
- Thou mayst speak of me as naught, as one whose life is o’er.
- Lift up thy face, leave not thy children.
- ’Tis not my own free will; O my babes, farewell!
- Look, look on them but once.
- My end is come.