Supplices

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.

  1. As for these maids, if, convinced by god-fearing argument, they consent of their own free will and heartily, you may take them. But to this purpose a decree has been passed by the unanimous resolve of the people of the State, never, under compulsion, to surrender this association of women. Through their resolve
  2. the rivet has been driven home, to remain fixed and fast. Not on tablets is this inscribed, nor has it been sealed in folds of books: you hear the truth from free-spoken lips. Now get out of my sight immediately!
  1. I think we are about to involve ourselves in a new war. But may victory and authority rest with the men!
  1. It is men, I believe, you will find in the dwellers of this land; and they are no drinkers of diluted wine. Exit Herald. But
  2. take courage, all of you, and together with your handmaidens, proceed to our well-fenced town, encircled by sturdy devices of towers. As for places inside to lodge, there are plenty of the public sort. For on no modest scale do I myself live, where,
  3. in company with many others, you may occupy abodes suitably prepared; or, if it is more pleasing to you, it is free for you also to make your home in dwellings of separate sort. Of these select what is best and most to your desires. A protector you have in me and in all the inhabitants, whose resolve this is that now takes effect.
  4. Why wait for others of higher authority?
Chorus
  1. In blessings may you abound, noble Pelasgian, in requital for your blessings! But, if it pleases you, send our brave father Danaus here to be our adviser
  2. and leader of our counsels. For it befits him, rather than ourselves, to advise us where we should establish our home and what neighborhood is friendly. All the world is ready to cast reproach on those who speak a foreign tongue. But may all be for the best! Exit the King.
  3. And you, dear handmaidens, preserving your fair fame and provoking no angry utterances on the part of the native folk, take up your stations even as Danaus has allotted her duty of attendance unto each.
Enter Danaus with a bodyguard
Danaus
  1. My children, it is right to offer prayers to the Argives and to sacrifice and pour libations to them as to Olympian gods; for they are our saviors in no doubtful manner. They heard from my lips the conduct of your cousins toward their own kinfolk, and were moved to bitterness against them;
  2. but to me they assigned this escort of spearmen, that I might have rank and honor, and might not be ambushed and perish by the death of the spear, and so an ever-living burden come upon the land. Recipients of such favors as these,
  3. it becomes us to hold gratitude in yet higher honor from the bottom of our hearts. And in addition to the many other wise injunctions of your father recorded in your memory, inscribe this too—that an unknown company is proved by time. For in an alien’s case, all the world bears an evil tongue in readiness,
  4. and it is easy lightly to utter defiling slander. Therefore I would have you bring no shame upon me, now when your youthful loveliness attracts men’s gaze. The tender ripeness of summer fruit is in no way easy to protect; beasts despoil it—and men, why not?—
  5. and brutes that fly and those that walk the earth. Love’s goddess spreads news abroad of fruit bursting ripe. . . . So all men, as they pass,
  6. mastered by desire, shoot an alluring arrow of the eye at the delicate beauty of virgins. See to it, therefore, that we do not suffer that in fear for which we have endured great toil and ploughed the great waters with our ship; and that we bring no shame to ourselves and exultation to our enemies. Housing of two kinds is at our disposition,
  7. the one Pelasgus offers, the other, the city, and to occupy free of cost. These terms are easy. Only pay heed to these behests of your father, and count your chastity more precious than your life.
Chorus
  1. May the Olympian gods grant us good fortune in all the rest!
  2. But, concerning the bloom of my virginity, father, be of good cheer, for, unless some evil has been devised of Heaven, I will not swerve from the former pathway of my thoughts.
Chorus
  1. Come now away, glorifying the blessed gods, lords of the city both those who guard the town