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.
- And you, Epaphus, born from Io, our first mother, and child of Zeus: you I summon in foreign cry,
- oh! in foreign prayers: come, come to this land; your descendants settled here; and the goddesses of twofold name, Persephone and the kindly
- goddess Demeter the queen of all, Earth the nurse of all, won it for themselves; send to the help of this land those torch-bearing goddesses; for to gods all things are easy.
- Go, bring Creon, son of Menoeceus, the brother of Jocasta my mother; tell him I want to consult with him on matters public and private, before we set out to battle and the arrangement of the army.
- But he is here, saving you the trouble; I see him on his way to my house.
- I have been everywhere, lord Eteocles, in my desire to see you, and have gone all round the gates and sentinels of Thebes hunting for you.
- And I wanted to see you, Creon; for I found the terms of peace far from satisfactory, when I came to confer with Polyneices.
- I hear that he has wider aims than Thebes, relying on his alliance with Adrastus and his army. But we must leave this dependent on the gods;
- I have come to tell you our chief obstacle.
- What is that? I do not understand what you say.
- Someone has come who was captured from the Argives.
- What news does he bring from there?
- He says the Argive army intend at once to wind about the city of Thebes and its towers, with their army.
- In that case the city of Cadmus must lead out its army.
- Where? Are you so young that your eyes do not see what they should?
- Across those trenches, to fight at once.
- Our forces are small, while theirs are plentiful.
- I know well they are brave in argument.
- Argos has some weight among the Hellenes.
- Never fear! I will soon fill the plain with their dead.