Euripides' HELEN Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

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Chorus: Ah, misery! Alas! for thy grievous destiny! Woe for thy sad
lot, lady! Ah! 'twas a day of sorrow meted out for thee when Zeus
came glancing through the sky on snowy pinions like a swan and won
thy mother's heart. What evil is not thine? Is there a grief in life
that thou hast not endured? Thy mother is dead; the two dear sons
of Zeus have perished miserably, and thou art severed from thy country's
sight, while through the towns of men a rumour runs, consigning thee,
my honoured mistress, to a barbarian's bed; and 'mid the ocean waves
thy lord hath lost his life, and never, never more shalt thou fill
with joy thy father's halls or Athena's temple of the "Brazen House."

Helen: Ah! who was that Phrygian, who was he, that felled that pine
with sorrow fraught for Ilium, and for those that came from Hellas?
Hence it was that Priam's son his cursed barque did build, and sped
by barbarian oars sailed unto my home, in quest of beauty, woman's
curse, to win me for his bride; and with him sailed the treacherous
queen of Love, on slaughter bent, with death alike for Priam's sons,
and Danai too. Ah me! for my hard lot! Next, Hera, stately bride of
Zeus, seated on her golden throne, sent the son of Maia, swift of
foot, who caught me up as I was gathering fresh rose-buds in the folds
of my robe, that I might go to the "Brazen House," and bore me through
the air to this loveless land, making me an object of unhappy strife
'twixt Hellas and the race of Priam. And my name is but a sound without
reality beside the streams of Simois.

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