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. I am ruined, to make plain to you my troubles in brief.
Pylades
  1. You must destroy me also; for friends have all in common.
Orestes
  1. Menelaus is the worst of men to me and my sister.
Pylades
  1. It is natural for the husband of an evil woman to become evil.
Orestes
  1. He no more repaid me by coming here, than if he had never come.
Pylades
  1. Oh, has he really arrived in this land?
Orestes
  1. He took a long time, but he was very soon detected as evil to his friends.
Pylades
  1. And did he bring his wife, the worst of women, with him on his ship?
Orestes
  1. It was not he who brought her here, but she who brought him.
Pylades
  1. Where is she, the one woman who proved the ruin of so many Achaeans?
Orestes
  1. In my house; if, that is, I ought to call it mine.
Pylades
  1. And what did you say to your father’s brother?
Orestes
  1. Not to see me and my sister killed by the citizens.
Pylades
  1. By the gods! What did he say to that? I would like know this.
Orestes
  1. He was cautious, the usual policy of ignoble friends.
Pylades
  1. What excuse did he advance? When I have learned that, I know everything.
Orestes
  1. There was a new arrival, the father who begot those noble daughters.
Pylades
  1. You mean Tyndareus; he was angry with you, perhaps, for his daughter’s sake?
Orestes
  1. You understand. And Menelaus preferred the family relationship with him to that with my father.
Pylades
  1. He did not have the courage to share your troubles, when he was here?