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. And bury the sharp-edged knife, wherewith thou shalt have laid the victims open and shed their blood, deep in the bowels of the earth, hard by the pyres where the seven chieftains burn; for its appearance shall strike them with dismay, if e’er against thy town they come, and shall cause them to return with sorrow.
  2. When thou hast done all this, dismiss the dead from thy land. And to the god resign as sacred land the spot where their bodies were purified by fire, there by the meeting of the triple roads that lead unto the Isthmus. Thus much to thee, Theseus, I address; next to the sons of Argos I speak; when ye are grown to men’s estate, the town beside Ismenus shall ye sack,
  3. avenging the slaughter of your dead sires; thou too, Aegialeus, shalt take thy father’s place and in thy youth command the host, and with thee
    Tydeus’ son marching from Aetolia,—him whom his father named Diomedes. Soon as the beards your cheeks o’ershadow
  4. must ye lead an armed Danaid host against the battlements of Thebes with sevenfold gates. For to their sorrow shall ye come like lion’s whelps in full-grown might to sack their city. No otherwise is it to be;
  5. and ye shall be a theme for minstrels’ songs in days to come, known through Hellas as the After-born so famous shall your expedition be, thanks to Heaven.
Theseus
  1. Queen Athena, I will hearken to thy bidding; for thou it is dost set me up, so that I go not astray. And I will bind this monarch by an oath; do thou but guide my
  2. steps aright. For if thou art friendly to our state, we shall henceforth live secure.
Chorus
  1. Let us go, Adrastus, and take the oath to this monarch and his state; for the service they have already done us claims our warm regard.