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.
- Not yet; I call delay the equal of inaction.
- How do you stand in the city after that deed of yours?
- I am so hated that no one will speak to me.
- Have your hands not even been cleaned of blood, according to custom?
- No, for wherever I go, the door is shut against me.
- Which citizens are driving you from the land?
- Oeax, who refers to my father his reason for hating Troy.
- I understand; he is avenging on you the blood of Palamedes.
- That was nothing to do with me; yet I am destroyed for three reasons.
- Who else? Some of the friends of Aegisthus, I suppose?
- They insult me, and the city listens to them now.
- Will the city allow you to keep the scepter of Agamemnon?
- How, seeing that they will not allow me to remain alive?
- What is their method? Can you tell me plainly?
- A vote will be taken against us today.
- To leave the city? Or to die, or not to die?
- Death by stoning at the hands of the citizens.
- Then why not cross the border and try to escape?
- Because we are encircled by men fully armed.
- Private foes or Argive troops?