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. yet can she never escape the pollution of murder, and public opinion will make thee too an accomplice in this deed of blood, for thy share in the business must needs implicate thee. But even supposing I escape death myself, will ye kill my child? Even then, how will his father
  2. brook the murder of his child? Troy has no such coward’s tale to tell of him; nay, he will follow duty’s call; his actions will prove him a worthy scion of Peleus and Achilles. Thy daughter will he thrust forth from his house; and what wilt thou
  3. say when seeking to betroth her to another? wilt say her virtue made her leave a worthless lord? Nay, that will be false. Who then will wed her? wilt thou keep her without a husband in thy halls, grown grey in widowhood? Unhappy wretch! dost not see the flood-gates of trouble opening wide for thee?
  4. How many a wrong against a wife wouldst thou prefer thy daughter to have found to suffering what I now describe? We ought not on trifling grounds to promote serious mischief; nor should men, if we women are so deadly a curse, bring their nature down to our level.
  5. No! if, as thy daughter asserts, I am practising sorcery against her and making her barren, right willingly will I, without any crouching at altars, submit in my own person to the penalty that lies in her husband’s hands,
  6. seeing that I am no less chargeable with injuring him if I make him childless. This is my case; but for thee, there is one thing[*](i.e. I am afraid, even if I prove the malice and falseness of her charges against me, you will not punish her, for your partiality and weakness in such cases is well known.) I fear in thy disposition; it was a quarrel for a woman that really induced thee to destroy poor Ilium’s town.
Chorus
  1. Thou hast said too much for a woman speaking to
    men. that discretion hath shot away its last shaft from thy soul’s quiver.[*](i.e. there is no more to be said on that subject. The suggestion by Paley of ἐξετόξευσας is very plausible.)
Menelaus
  1. Woman, these are petty matters, unworthy, as thou sayest, of my despotic sway, unworthy too of Hellas. Yet mark this well; his special fancy of the hour is of more moment to a man than Troy’s capture.
  2. I then have set myself to help my daughter because I consider her loss of a wife’s rights a grave matter; for whatever else a woman suffers is secondary to this; if she loses her husband’s love she loses her life therewith. Now, as it is right Neoptolemus should rule my slaves,
  3. so my friends and I should have control of his; for friends, if they be really friends, keep nothing to themselves, but have all in common. So if I wait for the absent instead of making the best arrangement I can at once of my affairs, I show weakness, not wisdom.
  4. Arise then, leave the goddess’s shrine, for by thy death this child escapeth his, whereas, if thou refuse to die, I will slay him; for one of you twain must perish.
Andromache
  1. Ah me! ’tis a bitter lot thou art offering about my
  2. life; whether I take it or not I am equally unfortunate. Attend to me, thou who for a trifling cause art committing an awful crime. Why art thou bent on slaying me? What reason hast thou? What city have I betrayed? Which of thy children was ever slain by me?
  3. What house have I fired? I was forced to be my master’s concubine; and spite of that wilt thou slay me, not him who is to blame, passing by the cause and hurrying to the inevitable result? Ah me! my sorrows! Woe for my hapless country!
  4. How cruel my fate! Why had I to be a mother too and take upon me a double load of suffering? Yet why do I mourn the past, and o’er the present never shed[*](The word ἐξικμάζω which strictly means to extract the moisture is here explained by the Schol. as = δακρύω. There is no parallel to this usage, and the word, though left in the text by most editors is, as Dindorf remarks, almost certainly corrupt, due perhaps to a gloss, such as ἐξετάζω for ἐξιχνεύω. (Cf. Paley’s note ad loc.)) a tear or compute its griefs? I
    that saw Hector butchered and dragged behind the chariot,
  5. and Ilium, piteous sight! one sheet of flame, while I was haled away by the hair of my head to the Argive ships in I slavery, and on my arrival in Phthia was assigned to Hector’s murderer as his mistress. What pleasure then has life for me? Whither am I to turn my gaze?
  6. to the present or the past? My babe alone was left me, the light of my life; and him these ministers of death would slay. No! they shall not, if my poor life can save him; for if he be saved, hope in him lives on,
  7. while to ’twere shame to refuse to die for my son. Lo! here I leave the altar and give myself into your hands, to cut or stab, to bind or hang. Ah! my child, to Hades now thy mother passes to save thy dear life. Yet if thou escape thy doom,
  8. remember me, my sufferings and my death, and tell thy father how I fared, with fond caress and streaming eye and arms thrown round his neck. Ah! yes, his children are to every man as his own soul; and[*]( i.e. the childless man may laugh at the father for his fondness; he may even escape some pain and annoyance from having no family, but still in his heart he feels a void which nothing else can fill.) whoso sneers at this through inexperience,
  9. though he suffers less anguish, yet tastes the bitter in his cup of bliss.