The Suppliant Maidens

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.

  1. The very thing I wish, that every Argive should learn it.
Iphis
  1. Nay, I will ne’er consent to let thee do this deed.
Evadne
  1. (as she is throwing herself). ’Tis all one; thou shalt never catch me in thy grasp.
  2. Lo! I cast me down, no joy to thee, but to myself and to my husband blazing on the pyre with me.
Chorus
  1. O lady, what a fearful deed!
Iphis
  1. Ah me! I am undone, ye dames of Argos!
Chorus
  1. Alack, alack! a cruel blow is this to thee,
  2. but thou must yet witness, poor wretch, the full horror of this deed.
Iphis
  1. A more unhappy wretch than me ye could not find.
Chorus
  1. Woe for thee, unhappy man! Thou, old sir, hast been made partaker in the fortune of Oedipus, thou and my poor city too.
Iphis
  1. Ah, why are mortal men denied this boon, to live their youth twice o’er, and twice in turn to reach old age? If aught goes wrong within our homes, we set it right by judgment more maturely formed, but our life we may not so correct. Now if we had a second spell of youth
  2. and age, this double term of life would let us then correct each previous slip. I, for instance, seeing others blest with children, longed to have them too, and found my ruin in that wish. Whereas if I had had my present experience,
  3. and by a father’s light[*](Following Paley’s τεκών for the MSS. τέκνων.) had learnt how cruel a thing it is to be bereft of children, never should I have fallen on such evil days as these,—I who did beget a brave young son, proud parent that I was, and after all am now bereft of him. Enough of this. What remains for such a hapless wretch as me?
  4. Shall I to my home, there to see its utter desolation and the blank within my life? or shall I to the halls of that dead Capaneus?—halls I smiled to see in days gone by, when yet my daughter was alive. But she is lost and gone, she that would ever draw down my cheek
  5. to her lips, and take my head between her hands; for naught is there more sweet unto an aged sire than a daughter’s love; our sons are made of sterner stuff, but less winning are their caresses. Oh! take me to my house at once,
  6. in darkness hide me there, to waste and fret this aged frame with fasting! What shall it avail me to touch my daughter’s bones? Old age, resistless foe, how do I loathe thy presence! Them too I hate, whoso desire to lengthen out the span of life,