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