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. Some god with evil intent is destroying the race of Oedipus.
  2. So it began, my childbearing was unholy, and in an evil hour I married your father and you were born. But why repeat these horrors? What the gods send we have to bear. I am afraid to ask you what I would, for fear of stinging your heart; yet I long to.
Polyneices
  1. No, question me, leave out nothing; for your will, mother, is my pleasure too.
Jocasta
  1. Well then, first I ask you what I long to have answered. What is it, to be deprived of one’s country? Is it a great evil?
Polyneices
  1. The greatest; harder to bear than tell.
Jocasta
  1. What is it like? What annoys the exile?