The Phoenician Women
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.
- But what shall I do?
- You will put an end to your brothers’ strife.
- How so, mother?
- By falling at their knees with me.
- Lead on till we are between the armies; we must not delay.
- Haste, my daughter, haste! For, if I can forestall the onset of my sons, I may yet live; but if they are dead, I will lie down in death with them. Exeunt Jocasta and Antigone.
- Alas, alas! My mind is trembling with fear,
- trembling; and through my flesh goes a throb of pity, of pity for the hapless mother. Which of her two sons will stain the other with blood—
- ah, for the suffering! O Zeus, O earth, alas!—a brother’s throat, a brother’s life, through his shield, through his blood? Ah me! ah me! which of them
- will I lament as dead?
- Ah, the earth! Ah, the earth! Twin savage beasts, two murderous souls with brandished spears will soon be draining the fallen, fallen enemy’s blood. Unhappy,
- that they ever thought of single combat! In foreign voice I will chant a dirge of tears and wailing, in mourning for the dead. Close to murder stands their fortune;
- the coming day will decide it. Fatal this slaughter, fatal, because of the Furies.
- But hark! I see Creon on his way here to the house with clouded brow, and so I will cease my present lamentations.
- Ah me! what shall I do? Am I to mourn with tears myself or my city, which has a cloud around it as if it went through Acheron? My son has died for his country, bringing glory to his name, but grievous woe to me.
- His body I have just now taken from the dragon’s rocky lair and sadly carried the self-slain victim here in my arms; and the house is filled with weeping; but now I have come for my sister Jocasta, age seeking age, that she may bathe my child’s corpse and lay it out.
- For those who are not dead must reverence the god below by paying honor to the dead.