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.
- Partly by myself, partly by the man who wedded me, and partly by some god. On every side I see ruin.
- Why, what misfortune could happen to a woman as yet childless,
- unless her honour is concerned?
- My very complaint! Thou hast hit my case exactly.
- On whom has thy husband set his affections in thy stead?
- On his captive, Hector’s wife.
- An evil case indeed, for a man to have two wives!
- ’Tis even thus. So I resented it.
- Didst thou with woman’s craft devise a plot against thy rival?
- Yes, to slay her and her bastard child.
- And didst thou slay them, or did something happen to rescue them from thee?
- It was old Peleus, who showed regard to the weaker side.
- Hadst thou any accomplice in this attempted murder?
- My father came from Sparta for this very purpose.
- And was he after all defeated by that old man’s prowess ?
- Oh no! but by shame; and he hath gone and left me all alone.
- I understand; thou art afraid of thy husband for that thou hast done.
- Thou hast guessed it; for he will have a right to me. What can I say for myself? Yet I beseech thee by Zeus the god of our family, send me to a land as far as possible from this, or to my father’s house; for these very[*](Reading οἵδε γε.) walls seem to cry out Begone!
- and all the land of Phthia bates me. But if my lord return ere that from the oracle of Phoebus, he will put me to death on a shameful charge, or enslave me to his mistress, whom I ruled before. Maybe[*](Reading πῶς οὖν ἃν ἔιποι τις τάδ᾽ ἐξημάρτανες.) some one will say, How was it thou didst go thus astray?
- I was ruined by mischievous women who came to me and puffed me up with words like these: What! wilt thou suffer that vile captive, a mere bondmaid, to dwell within thy house and share thy wedded rights? By Heaven’s queen! if it were my house