Euripides' PHOENISSAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

81 pages - You are on Page 46

Teiresias: Thou biddest me act unjustly; I will not hold my peace.

Creon: What wilt thou then do to me? slay my child?

Teiresias: That is for others to decide; I have but to speak.

Creon: Whence came this curse on me and my son?

Teiresias: Thou dost right to ask me and to test what I have said.
In yonder lair, where the earth-born dragon kept watch and ward o'er
Dirce's springs, must this youth be offered and shed his life-blood
on the ground by reason of Ares' ancient grudge against Cadmus, who
thus avenges the slaughter of his earth-born snake. If ye do this,
ye shall win Ares as an ally; and if the earth receive crop for crop
and human blood for blood, ye shall find her kind again, that erst
to your sorrow reared from that dragon's seed a crop of warriors with
golden casques; for needs must one sprung from the dragon's teeth
be slain. Now thou art our only survivor of the seed of that sown
race, whose lineage is pure alike on mother's and on father's side,
thou and these thy sons. Haemon's marriage debars him from being the
victim, for he is no longer single; for even if he have not consummated
his marriage, yet is he betrothed; but this tender youth, consecrated
to the city's service, might by dying rescue his country; and bitter
will he make the return of Adrastus and his Argives, flinging o'er
their eyes death's dark pall, and will glorify Thebes. Choose thee
one of these alternatives; either save the city or thy son.

Now hast thou all I have to say. Daughter, lead me home. A fool, the
man who practises the diviner's art; for if he should announce an
adverse answer, he makes himself disliked by those who seek to him;
while, if from pity he deceives those who are consulting him, he sins
against Heaven. Phoebus should have been man's only prophet, for he
fears no man. (His daughter leads Teiresias out.)

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