Heracles

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. Ah! what is this? I see my children before the house in the robes of death, with chaplets on their heads and my wife amid a throng of men, and my father weeping—what misfortune? Let me draw near to them and inquire;
  2. lady, what strange stroke of fate has fallen on the house?
Megara
  1. Dearest of all mankind to me!
Amphitryon
  1. O ray of light appearing to your father!
Megara
  1. Are you safe and is your coming just in time to help your dear ones?
Heracles
  1. What do you mean? What is this confusion I find on my arrival, father?
Megara
  1. We are being ruined; forgive me, old friend,
  2. if I have anticipated that to which you had a right to tell him; for women’s nature is perhaps more prone to grief than men’s and they are my children that were being led to death, which was my own lot too.
Heracles
  1. Apollo! what a prelude to your story!
Megara
  1. My brothers are dead, and my old father.
Heracles
  1. How so? what did he do? whose spear did he meet?