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. Yes, for you are angry, and also old age is not wise.
Tyndareus
  1. What does a dispute about foolishness have to do with him? If right and wrong are clear to all, who was ever more senseless than this man, because he never weighed the justice of the case,
  2. nor appealed to the universal law of Hellas? For instance, when Agamemnon breathed his last struck on his head by my daughter a most foul deed, which I will never defend,
  3. he should have brought a charge against his mother and inflicted a holy penalty for bloodshed, banishing her from his house; thus he would have gained moderation instead of calamity, keeping strictly to the law and showing his piety as well. As it is, he has come into the same fate as his mother.
  4. for though he had just cause for thinking her a wicked woman, he has become more wicked by murdering her.
  5. I will ask you, Menelaus, just one question. If a man’s wedded wife should kill him, and his son in turn will kill his mother in revenge;
  6. next the avenger’s son to expiate this murder will commit another: where will the chain of horrors end?
  7. Our forefathers settled these matters the right way. They forbade any one with blood upon his hands to appear in their sight or cross their path;