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.

  1. near the tomb of Niobe’s seven unwed daughters. Do you see him?
Antigone
  1. I see him, yes! but not clearly; I see the outline of his form, the likeness of his breast. Would I could speed through the sky, swift as a cloud before the wind,
  2. towards my own dear brother, and throw my arms about my darling’s neck, so long, poor boy! an exile. How distinguished he is with his golden weapons, old man, flashing like the morning rays!
Old servant
  1. He will come to this house, under truce, to fill your heart with joy.
Antigone
  1. Who is that, old man, on his chariot, driving white horses?
Old servant
  1. That, lady, is the prophet Amphiaraus; with him are the victims, earth’s bloodthirsty streams.
Antigone
  1. Daughter of the sun with dazzling zone, O moon, you circle of golden light, how quietly, with what restraint he drives, goading first one horse, then the other! But where is the one who utters those dreadful insults against this city?
Old servant
  1. Capaneus? There he is, calculating how he may scale the towers, taking the measure of our walls up and down.
Antigone
  1. O Nemesis, and roaring thunder-peals of Zeus and blazing lightning-bolts, oh! put to sleep his presumptuous boasting!
  2. This is the man who says he will give the Theban girls as captives of his spear to the women of Mycenae, to Lerna’s trident, and the waters of Amymone, dear to Poseidon, when he has them enslaved.
  3. Never, never, Lady Artemis, golden-haired child of Zeus, may I endure that slavery.
Old servant
  1. My child, go inside, and stay beneath the shelter of your maiden chamber, now that you have had
  2. your wish and seen all that you wanted; for a crowd of women is coming toward the royal palace, as confusion enters the city. Now women by nature love scandal; and if they get some slight handle for their gossip
  3. they exaggerate it, for women seem to have pleasure in saying nothing wholesome about each other. Exeunt Antigone and the old servant.
Chorus
  1. From the Tyrian swell of the sea I came, a choice offering for Loxias from the island of Phoenicia,
  2. to be a slave to Phoebus in his halls, where he dwells under the snow-swept peaks of Parnassus; through the Ionian sea I sailed in the waves,
  3. over the unharvested plains, in the gusts of Zephyrus that ride from Sicily, sweetest music in the sky.