Euripides' ANDROMACHE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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51 pages - You are on Page 31

Peleus: Forbear such words, prompted by a woman's cowardice. Go on
thy way; who will lay a finger on you? Methinks he will do it to his
cost, For by heaven's grace I rule o'er many a knight and spearman
bold in my kingdom of Phthia; yea, and myself can still stand straight,
no bent old man as thou dost think; such a fellow as that a mere look
from me will put to flight in spite of my years. For e'en an old man,
be he brave, is worth a host of raw youths; for what avails a fine
figure if a man is coward? (Peleus, Andromache, and Molossus go out.)

Chorus: (singing, strophe)

Oh! to have never been born, or sprung from noble sires, the heir
to mansions richly stored; for if aught untoward e'er befall, there
is no lack of champions for sons of noble parents, and there is honour
and glory for them when they are proclaimed scions of illustrious
lines; time detracts not from the legacy these good men leave, but
the light of their goodness still burns on when they are dead.

(antistrophe)

Better is it not to win a discreditable victory, than to make justice
miscarry by an invidious exercise of power; for such a victory, though
men think it sweet for the moment, grows barren in time and comes
near being a stain on a house. This is the life I commend, this the
life I set before me as my ideal, to exercise no authority beyond
what is right either in the marriage-chamber or in the state.

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