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. In these delays the only cure for our evils is left.
Megara
  1. It is the biting pain of that interval I feel so.
Amphitryon
  1. Daughter, there may yet be a happy escape from present troubles for me and you; my son, your husband, may yet arrive. So calm yourself, and wipe those tears from your children’s eyes, and soothe them with soft words,
  2. inventing a tale to delude then, piteous though such fraud be. Yes, for even men’s misfortunes often flag, and the stormy wind does not always blow so strong, nor are the prosperous ever so; for all things change, making way for each other.
  3. The bravest man is he who relies ever on his hopes, but despair is the mark of a coward.
Chorus
  1. To the sheltering roof, to the old man’s couch, leaning on my staff have I set forth,
  2. chanting a plaintive dirge like some bird grown grey, I that am only a voice and a fancy bred of the visions of sleep by night, palsied with age, yet meaning kindly. All hail! you orphaned children!
  3. all hail, old friend! you too, unhappy mother, wailing for your husband in the halls of Hades!
Chorus
  1. Do not faint too soon upon your way,
  2. or let your limbs grow weary, as a colt beneath the yoke grows weary as he mounts some stony hill, dragging the weight of a wheeled chariot. Take hold of hand or robe, who ever feels his footsteps falter.
  3. Old friend, escort another like yourself, who once amid his toiling peers in the days of our youth would take his place beside you, no blot upon his country’s glorious record.