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.
- Before you I prostrate myself, lord, and supplicate you in my foreign way.
- We are not in Ilium, but the land of Argos.
- Everywhere, the wise find life sweeter than death.
- I suppose that shouting of yours was not for Menelaus to come to the rescue?
- Oh no! it was to help you I called out, for you are more deserving.
- Did the daughter of Tyndareus die justly, then?
- Most justly, even if she had three throats to die with.
- Your cowardice makes you glib; this is not what you really think.
- Why, surely she deserved it, the one who destroyed Hellas and the Phrygians too?
- Swear you are not saying this to humor me, or I will kill you.
- I swear by my life, an oath I would keep!
- Did every Phrygian in Troy show the same terror of steel as you do?
- Take your sword away! Held so near it flashes a dreadful gleam of blood.
- Are you afraid of being turned to a stone, as if you had seen a Gorgon?
- To a stone, no! but to a corpse; I don’t know this Gorgon’s head.
- A slave, and yet you fear death, which will release you from trouble?
- Slave or free, every one is glad to gaze upon the light.
- Well said! Your shrewdness saves you; go inside.
- You will not kill me after all?
- You are spared.