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.
- 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.
- Your sister, Creon, has gone out, and her daughter Antigone went with her.
- Where did she go? What happened? Tell me.
- She heard that her sons were about to engage in single combat for the royal house.
- What do you mean? In my tenderness to my dead son, I was not able to learn this.
- It is some time, Creon, since your sister’s departure,
- and I expect the struggle for life and death is already decided by the sons of Oedipus.
- Alas! I see a sign there, the gloomy look and face of the messenger coming to tell us the whole matter.
- Ah, woe is me! What story can I tell, what lament can I make?
- We are lost; your opening words have no fair appearance.
- Ah, woe is me! I say again; for I am bringing great horrors.