Heracleidae
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.
- we suppliants at Zeus’ altar in your market-place are being haled by force away, our sacred wreaths defiled, shame to your city, to the gods dishonour.
- Hark, hark! What cry is this that rises near the altar? At once explain the nature of the trouble.
- See this aged frame hurled in its feebleness upon the ground! Woe is me!
- Who threw thee down thus pitiably?
- Behold the man who flouts your gods, kind sirs, and tries by force to drag me from my seat before the altar of Zeus.
- From what land, old stranger, art thou come to this confederate state of four cities? or have ye left Euboea’s cliffs, and, with the oar that sweeps the sea, put in here from across the firth?[*](i.e. the Euripus between Euboea and Attica.)
- Sirs, no island life I lead,
- but from Mycenae to thy land I come.
- What do they call thee, aged sir, those folk in Mycenae?
- Maybe ye have heard of Iolaus, the comrade of Heracles, for he was not unknown to fame.
- Yea, I have heard of him in bygone days; but tell me, whose are the tender boys thou bearest in thine arms?
- These, sirs, are the sons of Heracles, come as suppliants to you and your city.
- What is their quest? Are they anxious, tell me, to obtain an audience of the state?
- That so they may escape surrender, nor be tom with violence from thy altars, and brought to Argos.
- Nay, this will nowise satisfy thy masters,
- who o’er thee have a right, and so have tracked thee hither.
- Stranger, ’tis but right we should reverence the gods’ suppliants, suffering none with violent hand to make them[*](Reading σφε (Musgrave) for MS. σε. Schmidt, τάδ’ ἀλιτεῖν σ’ ἕδη thee (i.e. Copreus) to transgress against.) leave the altars, for that will dread Justice ne’er permit.
- Do thou then drive these subjects of Eurystheus forth, and this hand of mine shall abstain from violence.
- ’Twere impious for the state to neglect the suppliant stranger’s prayer.
- Yet ’tis well to keep clear of troubles,