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 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
  2. 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,