Euripides' HERACLEIDAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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47 pages - You are on Page 15

Chorus: (singing) 'Tis time to use our forethought, ere the host
of Argos approach our frontier, for exceeding fierce are the warriors
of Mycenae, and in the present case still more than heretofore. For
all heralds observe this custom, to exaggerate what happened twofold.
Bethink the what a tale he will tell his master of his dreadful treatment,
how he came near losing his life altogether.

Iolaus: Children have no fairer prize than this, the being born of
a good and noble sire, and the power to wed from noble families; but
whoso is enslaved by passion and makes a lowborn match, I cannot praise
for leaving to his children a legacy of shame, to gratify himself.
For noble birth offers a stouter resistance to adversity than base
parentage; for we, in the last extremity of woe, have found friends
and kinsmen here, the only champions of these children through all
the length and breadth of this Hellenic world. Give, children, give
to them your hand, and they the same to you; draw near to them. Ah!
children, we have made trial of our friends, and if ever ye see the
path that leads you back to your native land, and possess your home
and the honours of your father, count them ever as your friends and
saviours, and never lift against their land the foeman's spear, in
memory of this, but hold this city first midst those ye love. Yea,
they well deserve your warm regard, in that they have shifted from
our shoulders to their own the enmity of so mighty a land as Argos
and its people, though they saw we were vagabonds and beggars; still
they did not give us up nor drive us forth. So while I live, and after
death,-come when it will,-loudly will I sing thy praise, good friend,
and will extol thee as I stand at Theseus' side, and cheer his heart,
as I tell how thou didst give kind welcome and protection to the sons
of Heracles, and how nobly thou dost preserve thy father's fame through
the length of Hellas, and hast not fallen from the high estate to
which thy father brought thee, a lot which few others can boast; for
'mongst the many wilt thou find one maybe, that is not degenerate
from his sire.

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