Andromache
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.
- With whom did she leave the house? with her father?
- The son of Agamemnon came and took her hence.
- What view hath he to further[*](Nauck προτείνων.) thereby? Will he marry her?
- Yes, and he is plotting thy grandson’s death.
- From an ambuscade, or meeting him fairly face to face?
- In the holy place of Loxias, leagued with Delphians.
- God help us! This is an immediate danger. Hasten one of you with all speed to the Pythian altar and tell our friends there what has happened here, ere Achilles’ son be slain by his enemies. Enter a Messenger.
- Woe worth the day! what evil tidings have I brought for thee, old sire, and for all who love my master! woe is me!
- Alas! my prophetic soul hath a presentiment.
- Aged Peleus, hearken! Thy grandson is no more; so grievously is he smitten
- by the men of Delphi and the stranger[*](i.e. Orestes.) from Mycenae.
- Ah! what wilt thou do, old man? Fall not; uplift thyself.
- I am a thing of naught; death is come upon me. My voice is choked, my limbs droop beneath me.
- Hearken; if thou art eager also[*](Reading εἰ καὶ, for which Hermann has εἴπερ. Dindorf εἴ τι.) to avenge thy friends,
- lift up thyself and hear what happened.
- Ah, destiny! how tightly hast thou caught me in thy toils, a poor old man at life’s extremest verge! But tell me how he was taken from me, my one son’s only child; unwelcome as such news is, I fain would hear it.
- As soon as we reached the famous soil of Phoebus, for three whole days were we feasting our eyes with the sight. And this, it seems, caused suspicion; for the folk, who dwell near the god’s shrine, began to collect in groups,
- while Agamemnon’s son, going to and fro through the town, would whisper in each man’s ear malignant hints: Do ye see yon fellow, going in and out of the god’s treasure-chambers, which are full of the gold stored there by all mankind? He is come hither a second time on the same mission as before,
- eager to sack the temple of Phoebus. Thereon there ran an angry murmur through the city, and the magistrates flocked to their council-chamber, while those, who have charge of the god’s treasures, had a guard privately placed amongst the colonnades.
- But we, knowing naught as yet of this, took sheep fed in the pastures of Parnassus, and went our way and stationed ourselves at the altars with vouchers and Pythian seers. And one said: What prayer, young warrior,