Iphigenia in Aulis
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.
- And do you then have tears streaming from your eyes?
- Yes, for long is the absence from each other, that awaits us.
- I do not know, dear father, I do not know of what you are speaking.[*](This line is corrupt, though the sense, so far, is preserved. Dindorf suspects 11. 652-5, and it certainly is difficult to see the connection of 1. 652 with what precedes. Paley suggests that several lines have been lost.)
- You are moving my pity all the more by speaking so sensibly.
- My words shall turn to senselessness if that will cheer you more.
- Alas! this silence is too much. You have my thanks.
- Stay with your children at home, father.
- My own wish But to my sorrow I may not
- Ruin seize their wars and the woes of Menelaus!
- First will that, which has been my life-long ruin, bring ruin to others.[*](ἄλλους ὀλεῖ πρόσθ᾽ ἁμὲ διολέσαντ᾽ ἔχει. None of the various proposed emendations are great improvements on this reading of Porson’s, though it is hardly likely that this is what Euripides wrote.)
- How long you were absent in the bays of Aulis!
- Yes, and there is still a hindrance to my sending the army forward.
- Where do men say the Phrygians live, father?
- In a land where I wish Paris, the son of Priam, never had dwelt.
- It is a long voyage you are bound on, father, after you leave me.
- You will meet your father again, my daughter.
- Ah! would it were seemly for you to take me as a fellow voyager
- You too have[*](Reading ἀλλ᾽ ἔστι, Hermann’s correction for MSS. αἰτεῖς τι.) a voyage to make to a haven where you will remember your father.
- Shall I sail there with my mother or alone?
- All alone, without father or mother.