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.
- What is it like? What annoys the exile?
- One thing most of all; he cannot speak his mind.
- This is a slave’s lot you speak of, not to say what one thinks.
- The follies of the rulers must be borne.
- That too is painful, to join in the folly of fools.
- Yet to gain our ends we must serve against our nature.
- Hope, they say, is the exile’s food.
- Yes, hope that looks so fair; but always in the future.
- But doesn’t time expose its emptiness?
- It has a certain winsome charm in misfortune.
- Where did you get your living, before your marriage found it for you?
- Sometimes I would have enough for the day, and sometimes not.
- Didn’t your father’s friends and guests assist you?
- Seek to be prosperous; friends are nothing in misfortune.
- Didn’t your noble breeding lead you to the heights?
- Poverty is a curse; breeding did not find me food.
- Man’s dearest treasure, it seems, is his country.