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.
- I know not, but thus much of their schemes I heard myself; and Menelaus has left the house to fetch him.
- Then am I lost; ah, my child! those
- vultures twain will take and slay thee; while he who is called thy father lingers still in Delphi.
- True, for had he been here thou wouldst not have fared so hardly, I am sure; but, as it is, thou art friendless.
- Have no tidings come of the possible arrival of Peleus?
- He is too old to help thee if he came.
- And yet I sent for him more than once.
- Surely thou dost not suppose that any of thy messengers heed thee?
- Why should they? Wilt thou then go for me?
- How shall I explain my long absence from the house?
- Thou art a woman; thou canst invent a hundred ways.
- There is a risk, for Hermione keeps no careless guard.
- Dost look to that? Thou art disowning thy friends in distress.
- Not so; never taunt me with that. I will go, for of a truth a
- woman and a slave is not of much account, e’en if aught befall, me.
- Go then, while I will tell to heaven the lengthy tale of lamentation, mourning, and weeping, that has ever been my hard lot; for ’tis woman’s way to delight in present misfortunes
- even to keeping them always on her tongue and lips. But I have many reasons, not merely one for tears,–my city’s fall, my Hector’s death, the hardness of the lot to which I am bound, since I fell on slavery’s evil days undeservedly.
- ’Tis never right to call a son of man happy, till thou hast seen his end, to judge from the way he passes it how he will descend to that other world.
- ’Twas no bride Paris took with him to the towers of Ilium, but a curse to his bed when he brought Helen to her bower.
- For her sake, O Troy, did eager warriors, sailing from Hellas in a thousand ships, capture and make thee a prey to fire and sword; and the son of sea-born Thetis mounted on his chariot dragged my husband Hector round the walls, ah woe is me! while I was hurried from my chamber to the beach,