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. How well you said that!
Orestes
  1. Now it’s time to change my plans.
Phrygian
  1. You didn’t say that well!
Orestes
  1. You fool! Do you think I could endure to make your throat bloody? You weren’t born a woman, nor do you belong among men. The reason I left the palace was to stop your shouting;
  2. for Argos is quickly roused, once it hears a cry to the rescue. As for Menelaus, I am not afraid of measuring swords with him; let him come, proud of the golden ringlets on his shoulders; for if, to avenge the slaying of Helen, he gathers the Argives and leads them against the palace, refusing to attempt the rescue of me,
  3. my sister, and Pylades, my fellow conspirator, he will have two corpses to behold, his daughter’s as well as his wife’s. Exeunt Orestes and The Phrygian Slave.
Chorus
  1. Ah, fortune! Again and yet again the house comes to a fearful contest, for the race of Atreus.
  2. What are we to do? Carry tidings to the town?
  3. Or hold our peace? It is safer, friends.
  4. Look, look at that sudden rush of smoke to the sky in front of the palace, telling its tale!
  5. They are kindling torches to fire the halls of Tantalus; nor do they hold back from murder.
  6. A god determines the end where he wishes, for mortals.
  7. Great is the power; by avenging fiends, this house has fallen, fallen, through blood, by reason of the hurling Myrtilus from the chariot.
Chorus Leader
  1. But look! I see Menelaus approaching the palace
  2. in haste; no doubt he has heard what is happening here. Descendants of Atreus within, make haste and secure the doors with bars. A man in luck is a dangerous adversary for luckless wretches like you, Orestes.
Menelaus
  1. I have come at the report of strange and violent deeds perpetrated
  2. by a pair of lions, men I do not call them. What I heard was that my wife was not dead, but had vanished out of sight, an idle rumor which someone fooled by his own fear brought me. But that is a plot
  3. of the matricide’s—ridiculous!
  4. Open the doors! I tell my servants to force the gates, so that I may rescue my child at any rate from the hands of those blood-stained men and recover my poor wretched wife,
  5. while the ones who destroyed her must die at my hands.