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.
- to have a poor honest man either as married kin or friend than a wealthy knave; but as for thee, thou art a thing of naught.
- The tongue from trifling causes contrives to breed great strife ’mongst men; wherefore are the wise most careful not to bring about a quarrel with their friends.
- Why,[*](Porson reads τίς δῆτ᾽ ἂν εἴτοι.) pray, should one call these old men wise, or those who once had a reputation in Hellas for being so? when thou, the great Peleus, son of a famous father, connected with me by marriage,[*](Nauck regards this as an interpolation, not improbably.) employest language disgraceful to thyself and abusive of me because of a barbarian woman,
- though thou shouldst have banished her far[*](Reading τῆλ᾽ (Reiske).) beyond the streams of Nile or Phasis, and ever encouraged me; seeing that she comes from Asia’s continent where fell so many of the sons of Hellas, victims to the spear; and likewise because she shared in the spilling of thy son’s blood;
- for[*](Lines 655-656 are rejected by Nauck.) Paris who slew thy son Achilles, was brother to Hector, whose wife she was. And dost thou enter the same abode with her, and deign to let her share thy board, and suffer her to rear her brood of vipers in thy house?
- But I, after all this foresight for thee, old man, and myself, am to have her torn from my clutches for wishing to slay her. Yet come now, for there is no disgrace in arguing the matter out; suppose my daughter has no child, while this woman’s sons grow up, wilt thou set them up to rule the land of Phthia,
- barbarians born and bred to lord it over Hellenes? Am I then so void of sense because I hate injustice, and thou so full of cleverness? Consider[*](Lines 668-677 are regarded by Hirzel as not being the work of Euripides. Nauck incloses them in brackets.) yet another point; say thou hadst given a daughter of thine to some citizen, and hadst then seen her thus treated,
- wouldst thou have sat looking on in silence? I trow not. Dost thou then for a foreigner rail thus at thy nearest friends? Again, thou mayst say, husband and wife have an equally strong case if she is wronged by him, and similarly if he find her guilty of indiscretion in his house;
- yet while he has ample powers in his own hands, she depends on parents and friends for her case. Surely then I am right in helping my own kin! Thou art in thy dotage; for thou wilt do me more, good by speaking of my generalship than by concealing it.
- Helen’s trouble was not of her own choosing, but sent by heaven, and it proved a great benefit to Hellas; her sons, till then untried in war or arms, turned to deeds of prowess, and it is experience which teaches man all he knows.
- I showed my wisdom in refraining from slaying my wife, directly I caught sight of her. Would that thou too hadst ne’er slain Phocus
- All this I bring before thee in pure good-will, not from anger. But if thou resent it, thy tongue may wag till it ache,
- yet shall I gain by prudent forethought.
- Cease now from idle words, ’twere better far, for fear ye both alike go wrong.
- Alas! what evil customs now prevail in Hellas! Whene’er the host sets up a trophy o’er the foe,
- men no more consider this the work of those who really toiled, but the general gets the credit for it. Now he was but one among ten thousand others to brandish his spear; he only did the work of one; but yet he wins more praise than they. Again, as magistrates in all the grandeur of office
- they scorn the common folk, though they are naught themselves; whereas those others are ten thousand times more wise than they, if daring combine with judgment. Even so thou and thy brother, now take your seats in all the swollen pride of Trojan fame and Trojan generalship,