Ion
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.
- Never willingly, but I am not master of that which is mine no more.
- Maidens mine, my trusty servants at the loom and web, declare to me how my lord hath fared as touching the question of offspring which brought us hither:
- for if ye give me good news, ye will cause joy to a mistress who will not prove faithless to her word.
- O fortune!
- This prelude to your speech is unlucky.
- Woe is me!
- Can it be that the oracles delivered to my master wound me at all?
- Enough! why have aught to do with that which brings down death?
- What means this piteous strain? wherefore this alarm?
- Are we to speak or keep silence? What shall we do?
- Speak; for thou hast somewhat to tell that touches me.
- Then speak I will, though twice to die were mine. O mistress mine! never shalt thou hold a babe within thy arms or clasp him to thy breast.
- Ah me! would I were dead!
- My daughter!
- O woe is me for my calamity! Mine is a heritage of suffering and woe that poisons life, good friends.
- Ah, my child, ’tis death to us!
- Ah me! ah me! grief drives its weapon through this heart of mine.
- Stay thy lamentations.
- Nay, but sorrow lodges here.
- Till we learn—