Orestes

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. in my Asian slippers, by clambering over the cedar-beams that roof the porch and the Doric triglyphs, away, away! O Earth, Earth! in barbaric flight!
  2. Alas! You foreign women, where can I escape, flying through the clear sky or over the sea, which bull-headed Ocean rolls about as he circles the world in his embrace?
Chorus Leader
  1. What is it, Helen’s slave, creature from Ida?
Phrygian
  1. Ilium, Ilium, oh me! city of Phrygia, and Ida’s holy hill with fruitful soil, how I mourn for your destruction a shrill song
  2. with barbarian cry; destroyed through her beauty, born from a bird, swan-feathered, Leda’s cub, hellish Helen! to be a curse to Apollo’s tower of polished stone. Ah! Alas!
  3. woe to Dardania, its wailing, wailing, for the horsemanship of Ganymede, bedfellow of Zeus.
Chorus Leader
  1. Tell us clearly each event within the house. for till now I have been guessing at what I do not clearly understand.
Phrygian
  1. Ah, for Linus! Ah, for Linus! That is what barbarians say, alas, in their eastern tongue as a prelude to death, whenever royal blood is spilled upon the ground by deadly iron blades.