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.
- 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.
- What mean’st thou? art leaving us?
- Farewell!
- Lost! lost! woe is me!
- She is gone, the wife of Admetus is no more.
- O my hard fate! My mother has passed to the realms below; she lives no more,
- dear father, ’neath the sun. Alas for her! she leaves us ere her time and to me bequeaths an orphan’s life. Behold that staring eye, those nerveless hands!
- Hear me, mother, hear me, I implore! ’tis I who call thee now, I thy tender chick, printing my kisses on thy lips.