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.
- and begot sons that were my brothers, whom I have destroyed, by bequeathing to them the legacy of curses I received from Laius. For I was not born so foolish, that I should have contrived these things against my own eyes and my children’s life, without some god.
- Let that pass. What am I, poor wretch, to do? Who now will be my guide and tend the blind man’s step? The one who is dead? If she were alive, I know well that she would. My pair of noble sons? But they are gone from me. But am I still so young myself that I can find a livelihood?
- Where? O Creon, why do you seek in this way to kill me utterly? For you will kill me, if you banish me from the land. Yet I will never twine my arms about your knees and seem a coward, for I would not betray my former nobility, no! not for all my ills.
- You have spoken well, in refusing to touch my knees, but I could not allow you to dwell in the land. Of these dead, bear one at once to the palace; but the other, who came with strangers to sack his native town, the dead Polyneices,
- cast forth unburied beyond the borders of this land. To all the race of Cadmus shall this be proclaimed: Whoever is caught decking his corpse with wreaths or giving it burial, shall be requited with death. let him be unwept, unburied, a meal for birds.
- As for you, Antigone, leave your mourning for these lifeless three and go indoors, to lead your maiden life until to-morrow, when Haemon waits to marry you.
- O father, in what cruel misery are we plunged!
- For you I mourn more than for the dead; for in your woes you do not have something that is grievous and something not; but you were born wholly unfortunate, father. As for you, new-made king, I ask you, who do you insult my father with banishment?
- Why do you make laws over a helpless corpse?
- This was Eteocles’ purpose, not mine.
- It is senseless, and you are a fool to obey it!
- How so? Isn’t it right to carry out his commands?
- No; not if they are wrong and ill-advised.
- What? Isn’t it right for that other to be given to the dogs?
- No, for the vengeance you are exacting is not a lawful one.
- Yes, if he was his country’s enemy, when not born an enemy.
- Well, he rendered up his destiny to fate.
- Let him now pay the penalty in his burial too.
- What crime did he commit, in coming to claim his portion of the land?
- Be very sure of this, he shall have no burial.