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. for what avails a fine figure if a man is a coward? Exeunt Peleus, Andromache, and Molossus.
Chorus
  1. Oh! to have never been born, or sprung from noble sires, the heir to mansions richly stored;
  2. for if aught untoward e’er befall, there is no lack of champions for sons of noble parents, and there is honour and glory for them when they are proclaimed scions of illustrious lines; time detracts not from the legacy these good
  3. men leave, but the light of their goodness still burns on when they are dead.
Chorus
  1. Better is it not to win a discreditable victory,
  2. than to make justice miscarry by an invidious exercise of power; for such a victory, though men think it sweet for the moment, grows barren in time and comes very near being a family reproach.
  3. This is the life I commend, this the life. I set before me as my ideal, to exercise no authority beyond what is right either in the marriage-chamber or in the state.
Chorus
  1. O aged son of Aeacus!
  2. now am I sure that thou wert with the Lapithae, wielding thy famous spear, when they fought the Centaurs;
    and on Argo’s deck didst pass the cheerless strait beyond the sea-beat Symplegades
  3. on her voyage of note; and when in days long gone the son of Zeus spread slaughter round Troy’s famous town,
  4. thou too didst share his triumphant return to Europe.
Nurse
  1. Alas! good friends, what a succession of troubles is to-day provided us! My mistress Hermione within the house,
  2. deserted by her father and in remorse for her monstrous deed in plotting the death of Andromache and her child, is bent on dying; for she is afraid her husband will in requital for this expel her with dishonour from his house
  3. or put her to death, because she tried to slay the innocent. And the servants that watch her can scarce restrain her efforts to hang herself, scarce catch the sword and wrest it from her hand. So bitter is her anguish,
  4. and she hath recognized the villainy of her former deeds. As for me, friends, I am weary of keeping my mistress from the fatal noose; do ye go in and try to save her life; for if strangers come, they prove more persuasive than the friends of every day.
Chorus
  1. Ah yes! I hear an outcry in the house amongst the servants, confirming the news thou hast brought. Poor sufferer! she seems about to show a lively grief for her grave crimes; for she has escaped her servants’ hands and is rushing from the house, eager to end her life.
Hermione
  1. rushing wildly on to the stage. Woe, woe is me! I will tear my hair and scratch cruel furrows in my cheeks.