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.
- Where didst thou leave the dead he hath not buried?
- Not far away; earnest haste makes every goal look close.
- No doubt in sorrow slaves would gather them from the carnage.
- Slaves! not one of them was set to do this toil.
- ---[*](Hermann detected the loss of a line here. Subsequent editors have followed his hint.)
- Thou wouldst say so, hadst thou been there to see his loving tendance of the dead.
- Did he himself wash the bloody wounds of the hapless youths?
- Ay, and strewed their biers and wrapped them in their shrouds.
- An awful burden[*](Reading οὖν for ἧν (Elmsley.)) this, involving some disgrace.
- Why, what disgrace to men are their fellows’ sorrows?
- Ah me! how much rather had I died with them!
- ’Tis vain to weep and move to tears these women.
- Methinks ’tis they who give the lesson. Enough[*](Elmsley reads ἀλλ’ εἶμ’, ἐπάρω for MS. ἀλλ’ εἶεν, αἴρω. Some correction of the kind does seem necessary, for the dead bodies are not noticed as arriving till later.) of that! My hands I lift at meeting of the dead, and pour forth a tearful dirge to Hades, calling on my friends,
- whose loss I mourn in wretched solitude; for this one thing, when once ’tis spent, man cannot recover, the breath of life, though he knoweth ways to get his wealth again.
- Joy is here and sorrow too,—
- for the state fair fame, and for our captains double meed of honour. Bitter for me it is to see the limbs of my dead sons, and yet a welcome sight withal, because I shall behold the unexpected day
- after sorrow’s cup was full.
- Would that Father Time had kept me unwed from my youth up e’en till now when I am old! What need had I of children?
- Methinks I should not have suffered excessively, had I never borne the marriage-yoke; but now I have my sorrow full in view, the loss of children dear.
- Lo! I see the bodies