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. Rest easy about the old man’s power; and, as for Achilles’ son with all his insolence to me, never fear him;
  2. such a crafty net this hand hath woven and set for his death with knots that none can loose; whereof I will not speak before the time, but, when my plot begins to work, Delphi’s rock will witness it. If but my allies
  3. in the Pythian land abide by their oaths, this same murderer of his mother will show that no one else shall marry thee my rightful bride.[*](Reading, as Paley suggests, γαμεῖν σε μηδέν᾽, ἣν ἐχρῆν ἐμέ.) To his cost will he demand satisfaction of King Phoebus for his father’s blood; nor shall his repentance avail him, though he is now submitting to the god.
  4. No! he shall perish
    miserably by Apollo’s hand and my fake accusations; so shall he end out my enmity. For the deity upsets the fortune of them that hate him. and suffers them not to be high-minded. Exeunt Orestes and Hermione.
Chorus
  1. O Phoebus! who didst fence the hill of Ilium with a fair coronal of towers,
  2. and thou, ocean-god! coursing o’er the main with thy dark steeds, wherefore did ye hand over in dishonour
  3. your own handiwork to the war-god, master of the spear, abandoning Troy to wretchedness?
Chorus
  1. Many a well-horsed car ye yoked on the banks of Simois,
  2. and many a bloody tournament did ye ordain with never a prize to win; and Ilium’s princes are dead and gone; no longer in Troy
  3. is seen the blaze of fire on altars of the gods with the smoke of incense.
Chorus
  1. The son of Atreus is no more, slain by the hand of his wife, and she herself hath paid the debt of blood by death,
  2. and from her children’s hands received her doom. The god’s own bidding from his oracle was levelled against her, in the day that Agamemnon’s son set forth from Argos and visited his shrine;