Helen
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.
- You are right; a dilemma. Well, what if I were to hide in the house and kill the king with this two-edged sword?
- His sister would never be silent or allow you to intend her own brother’s death.
- Nor indeed is there a ship in which we might safely escape; for the sea holds the one we had.
- Listen to me, if even a woman can say something wise.
- Are you willing to be called dead in word, though you are not dead?
- It is a bad omen; but if I profit by it, I am ready to be called dead in word, though I am not dead.
- And truly I would mourn you, as women do, with hair cut short and laments before this impious man.
- What saving remedy does this have for us two? There is a flavor of deception in your scheme.
- I will beg the tyrant of this country for permission to bury you in an empty tomb, as if you had really died at sea.
- Soppose he allows it; then how shall we escape with no ship,
- when we have buried my body in the empty tomb?
- I will urge him to give me a vessel, from which I shall have the offerings from your tomb let down into the sea’s embrace.
- You have spoken well, except for one thing: if he commands you to set up a tomb on the dry land, your pretext comes to nothing.
- But I will say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who have died at sea on the dry land.
- You are setting this right, too; then I will sail with you, and help let down the funeral offerings, in the same ship.