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. in Hera’s meadow and the crag of Cithaeron, after piercing his ankles with iron spikes; from which Hellas named him Oedipus. But Polybus’ horsemen found him and took him home and laid him in the arms of their mistress.
  2. So she suckled the child that I had borne and persuaded her husband she was its mother.
  3. When my son had become a man, with tawny beard, either because he had guessed or learned it from another, he set out for the shrine of Phoebus, wanting to know for certain who his parents were;
  4. and so did Laius, my husband, seeking to learn if the child he had exposed was dead. And the two of them met at the branching road of Phocis. And Laius’ charioteer ordered him:
  5. Stranger, make way for the king! But he walked on without a word, in his pride. The horses with their hoofs drew blood from the tendons of his feet. Then—why need I speak of matters outside these evils?—son slew father, and taking his chariot
  6. gave it to Polybus, his foster-father. Now when the Sphinx was oppressing and ravaging our city, after my husband’s death, my brother Creon proclaimed my marriage: that he would marry me to anyone who should guess the riddle of the crafty maiden. It happened somehow