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.

  1. and terrible was the war-dance thou hadst then seen thy grandson dance to avoid their marksmanship. At last, when they were hemming him in on all sides, allowing him no breathing space, he left the shelter of the altar, the hearth where victims are placed, and with one bound was on them as on the Trojans of yore;
  2. and they turned and fled like doves when they see the hawk. Many fell in the confusion; some wounded, and others trodden down by one another along the narrow passages; and in that hushed holy house uprose unholy din
  3. and echoed back from the rocks. Calm and still my master stood there in his gleaming harness like a flash of light, till from the inmost shrine there came a voice of thrilling horror, stirring the crowd to make a stand. Then fell Achilles’ son,
  4. smitten through the flank by some Delphian’s biting blade, some fellow that slew him with a host to help; and as he fell, there
    was not one that did not stab him, or cast a rock and batter his corpse. So his whole body,
  5. once so fair, was marred with savage wounds. At last they cast the lifeless clay, lying near the altar, forth from the fragrant fane. And we gathered up his remains forthwith and are bringing them to thee,
  6. old prince, to mourn and weep and honour with a deep-dug tomb.
  7. This is how that prince who vouchsafeth oracles to others, that judge of what is right for all the world, hath revenged himself on Achilles’ son, remembering his ancient quarrel as a wicked man would.
  8. How then can he be wise? Exit Messenger. The body of Neoptolemus is carried in on a bier.
Chorus
  1. Lo! E’en now our prince is being carried on a bier from Delphi’s land unto his home. Woe for him and his sad fate, and woe for thee, old sire! for this is not the welcome thou wouldst give Achilles’ son,
  2. the lion’s whelp; thyself too by this sad mischance[*](κύρσας is probably corrupt. Nauck omits it, and marks a lacuna.) dost share his evil lot.
Peleus
  1. Ah! woe is me! here is a sad sight for me to see and take unto my halls!
  2. Ah me! ah me! I am undone, thou city of Thessaly! My line now ends; I have no children left me in my home. Oh! the sorrows I seem born to endure! What
  3. friend can I look to for relief? Ah, dear lips, and cheeks, and hands! Would thy destiny had slain thee ’neath Ilium’s walls beside the banks of Simois!
Chorus
  1. Had he so died, my aged lord, he had won him honour thereby,
  2. and thine had been the happier lot.
Peleus
  1. O marriage, marriage, woe to thee! thou bane of my home, thou destroyer[*](ὤλεσας ὤλεσας ἀμὰν (Hermann).) of my city! Ah my child, my boy! would[*](Paley has a long note on this passage, the sum of which seems to be that it is corrupt and unintelligible. Various emendation, all unsatisfactory, have been proposed. I have followed Hermann’s correction, the sense of which is thus given by Paley, would that your union with the captive Andromache had not involved you in the death intended for her;reading ὤφελ᾽ ἐμοὶ γέρας κ.τ.λ.) that the honour of wedding thee,
  2. fraught with
    evil as it was to my children and house, had not thrown oer thee, my son, Hermiones deadly net! O that the thunderbolt had slain her sooner! and that thou, rash mortal, hadst never charged