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.
- Ah, ah! Speak like the breath of a slender reed-pipe, my dear, I pray.
- See, how soft and low I drop my voice.
- Yes, do so; approach now, softly, softly!
- Give me an account of why you have come here. For at last he has lain down, and sleeps.
- How is he? You give us an account, my dear; what has happened, what misfortune?
- He is still breathing, but his moans grow feeble.
- What are you saying? turning to Orestes. Unhappy Orestes!
- You will kill him, if you disturb him from the sweet sleep he now enjoys.
- Poor sufferer, for his hateful deeds, inspired by a god!
- Ah, misery! Injustice it was, after all, from an unjust mouth, when Loxias on the tripod of Themis
- decreed my mother’s most unnatural murder.
- Do you see? He stirs beneath his robe!
- Alas! Your noisy chatter has roused him from his sleep.
- No, I think he is asleep.
- Leave us, go away from the house! circle back again! cease this noise!
- He is asleep.
- You are right.[*](These words are assigned to the Chorus in the translation but have been moved to correlate to the Greek.) O Lady Night,
- giver of sleep to hard-working mortals, come from Erebus, come, wing your way to the palace of Agamemnon.
- For with misery and woe we are lost, we are gone.
- There! To the Chorus.that noise again! Do be still and keep the sound of your voice