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.
- It cannot be thy wife is dead, thy Alcestis?
- I can a twofold tale tell about her.
- Dost mean that she is dead, or living still?
- She lives, yet lives no more; that is my grief.
- I am no wiser yet; thy words are riddles to me.
- Knowest thou not the doom she must undergo?
- I know she did submit to die in thy stead.
- How then is she still alive, if so she promised?
- Ah! weep not thy wife before the day, put that off till then.
- The doomed is dead; the dead no more exists.
- Men count to be and not to be something apart.
- Thy verdict this, O Heracles, mine another.
- Why weepest then? which of thy dear ones is the dead?
- ’Tis a woman; I spoke of a woman just now.
- A stranger, or one of thine own kin?
- A stranger, yet in another sense related to my house.
- How then came she by her death in house of thine?
- Her father dead, she lived here as an orphan.
- Ah! would I had found thee free from grief, Admetus!
- With what intent dost thou devise this speech?