Euripides' HELEN Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

90 pages - You are on Page 50

Menelaus: I will slay thee and then myself upon the summit of the
tomb. But first will I in doughty fight contest another's claim to
thee; and let who will draw nigh! for I will not sully the lustre
of my Trojan fame, nor will I, on my return to Hellas, incur a storm
of taunts, as one who robbed Thetis of Achilles; saw Ajax, son of
Telamon, fall a weltering corpse; and the sort of Neleus of his child
bereft; shall I then flinch myself from death for my own wife? No,
no! For if the gods are wise, o'er a brave man by his foes laid low
they lightly sprinkle the earth that is his tomb, while cowards 'they
cast forth on barren rocky soil.

Leader: Grant, heaven, that the race of Tantalus may at last be blest,
and pass from sorrow unto joy!

Helen: Ah, woe is me! Yea, all my lot is woe; O Menelaus, we are utterly
undone! Behold! from forth the house comes Theonoe, the prophetess,
The palace echoes as the bolts are unfastened; fly! yet what use to
fly? For whether absent or present she knows of thy arrival here.
Ah me! how lost am I! Saved from Troy and from a barbarian land, thou
hast come only to fall a prey to barbarian swords. (Theonoe enters,
attended by hand-maidens carrying torches.)

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