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. 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.