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.
- You will not hesitate?
- No, for hesitation is a grave mischief among friends.
- On then, pilot of my course!
- A service I am glad to render.
- And guide me to my father’s tomb.
- For what purpose?
- That I may appeal to him to save me.
- Yes, that is the proper way.
- May I not see my mother’s grave!
- No; she was an enemy. But hasten, so that the vote of Argos may not catch you first,
- supporting those limbs, slow from sickness, on mine; for I will carry you through the town, thinking little of the mob and unashamed. For how shall I prove my friendship, if not by helping you in sore distress?
- Ah! the old saying again, get friends, not relations only.
- For a man who fuses into your ways, though he is an outsider, is better for a man to possess as a friend than a whole host of relations. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.
- The great prosperity and the prowess, proudly boasted throughout Hellas and by the streams of Simois,
- went back again from good fortune for the Atreidae long ago, from an old misfortune to their house, when strife came to the sons of Tantalus over a golden ram, to end in most pitiable banqueting and
- the slaughter of high-born children; and this is why murder exchanges for murder, through blood, and does not leave the two Atreidae.
- What seemed good was not good,
- to cut a mother’s flesh with ruthless hand and show the sword stained black with blood to the sun’s bright beams; to commit a noble crime is an impious, subtle, malignant madness!
- The wretched daughter of Tyndareus in terror of death screamed to him: My son, this is unholy, your bold attempt upon your mother’s life; do not, while honoring your father,
- fasten on yourself an eternity of shame.