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.

  1. My sword shall soon know if any one is to snatch your daughter from me, for then will I make it reek with the bloody stains of slaughter, before it reach Phrygia.[*](Porson, whom Monk follows, corrects this passage thus: ὃν, πρὶν εἰσ᾽ Φρύγας | ἐλθεῖν φόνον, κλῖσιν αἵματος χρανῶ, an ingenious but not absolutely necessary emendation.) Calm yourself then; as a god in his might I appeared to you, without being so, but such will I show myself for all that.
Chorus Leader
  1. Son of Peleus, your words are alike worthy of you and that sea-born deity, the holy goddess.
Clytemnestra
  1. Ah! would I could find words to utter your praise without excess, and yet not lose the graciousness of it by stinting it; for when the good are praised, they have some sort of feeling
  2. of hatred for those who in their praise exceed the mean. But I am ashamed of intruding a tale of woe, since my affliction touches myself alone and you are not affected by troubles of mine; but still it looks well for the man of worth to assist the unfortunate, even when he is not connected with then.
  3. Therefore pity us, for our suffering cries for pity; in the first place, I have harbored an idle hope, in thinking to have you marry my daughter; and next, perhaps, the slaying of my child will be to you an evil omen in your wooing hereafter, against which you must guard yourself.