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.
- Poverty is a curse; breeding did not find me food.
- Man’s dearest treasure, it seems, is his country.
- You could not name how dear it is!
- How did you come to Argos? What was your scheme?
- Loxias gave Adrastus an oracle.
- What was it? What are you saying? I cannot guess.
- That he should marry his daughters to a boar and a lion.
- What did you, my son, have to do with the name of beasts?
- I don’t know; the deity summoned me there to my destiny.
- Yes, for the god is wise; but how did you win your wife?
- It was night when I reached the porch of Adrastus.
- In search of a resting-place, because you were in exile?
- Yes; and then another exile came there.
- Who was he? He too was in trouble, surely.
- Tydeus; they say that Oineus is his father.
- But why did Adrastus compare you to wild beasts?
- Because we came to blows about our bed.
- Was it then that the son of Talaus understood the oracle?
- Yes, and he gave the two of us his two daughters.
- Are you blessed or cursed in your marriage?