Euripides' HELEN Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

90 pages - You are on Page 59

Helen: Abide here; for if the king attempts to do thee any mischief,
this tomb and thy good sword will protect thee. But I will go within
and cut off my hair, and exchange my white robe for sable weeds, and
rend my cheek with this hand's blood-thirsty nail. For 'tis a mighty
struggle, and I see two possible issues; either I must die if detected
in my plot, or else to my country shall I come and save thy soul alive.
O Hera! awful queen, who sharest the couch of Zeus, grant some respite
from their toil to two unhappy wretches; to thee I pray, tossing my
arms upward to heaven, where thou hast thy home in the star-spangled
firmament. Thou, too, that didst win the prize of beauty at the price
of my marriage; O Cypris! daughter of Dione, destroy me not utterly.
Thou hast injured me enough aforetime, delivering up my name, though
not my person, to live amongst barbarians. Oh! suffer me to die, if
death is thy desire, in my native land. Why art thou so insatiate
in mischief, employing every art of love, of fraud, and guileful schemes,
and spells that bring bloodshed on families? Wert thou but moderate,
only that!-in all else thou art by nature man's most well, come deity;
and I have reason so to say.
(Helen enters the palace and Menelaus withdraws into the background.)

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