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. 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.
Chorus
  1. The great prosperity and the prowess, proudly boasted throughout Hellas and by the streams of Simois,
  2. 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
  3. the slaughter of high-born children; and this is why murder exchanges for murder, through blood, and does not leave the two Atreidae.
Chorus
  1. What seemed good was not good,
  2. 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!
  3. 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,
  4. fasten on yourself an eternity of shame.