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. What affliction on earth surpasses this? What calls for keener grief or pity, than to shed with your hand a mother’s blood? Oh! what a dreadful crime he committed,
  2. and now is raving mad, a prey to the Furies, whirling blood with racing eyes, the son of Agamemnon! O the wretch! when
  3. he saw a mother’s bosom over her robe of golden weave, and yet he made her his victim, in recompense for his father’s sufferings.
Electra
  1. Women, has my poor Orestes left the house,
  2. mastered by the heaven-sent madness?
Chorus Leader
  1. Not at all; he has gone to the Argive people to stand the appointed trial for his life, in which he and you must live or die.
Electra
  1. Oh! Why did he do it? Who persuaded him?
Chorus Leader
  1. Pylades; but this messenger will no doubt soon tell us what happened to your brother there.