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. To tell you everything in turn, they came into the house, two twin lions of Hellas; one was called the general’s son; the other was the son of Strophius, a crafty plotter, like Odysseus, treacherous in silence,
  2. but true to his friends, bold for the fight, clever in war and a deadly serpent. Curse him for his quiet plotting, the villain!
  3. In they came to the throne of the wife of Paris the archer,
  4. faces wet with tears, and took their seats in all humility, one on this side, one on that, each with weapons. They threw, they threw their suppliant arms round the knees
  5. of Helen. Her Phrygian servants sprang up frantic, frantic; they called to each other in terror that there was treachery.
  6. To some there seemed no cause, but others thought that the viper who killed his mother was entangling the daughter of Tyndareus in the snare of his plot.
Chorus Leader
  1. And where were you? fled long before in terror?
Phrygian
  1. It happened that I, in Phrygian style, Phrygian, was wafting the breeze, the breeze by the curls of Helen, Helen, with a round feathered fan, before her face,