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. 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!
  2. 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?
  3. 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
  4. she should not live to reap my marriage-harvest!
    And I listened to the words of these Sirens, the cunning, knavish, subtle praters, and was filled with silly thoughts. What need had I to care about my lord?
  5. I had all I wanted, wealth in plenty, a house in which I was mistress, and as for children, mine would be born in wedlock, while hers would be bastards, half-slaves to mine. Oh! never, never,–this truth will I repeat,–should men of sense, who have wives,