Euripides' ORESTES Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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42 pages - You are on Page 32

First Semi-Chorus: (chanting) Look, look at that sudden rush of smoke
to the sky in front of the palace, telling its tale in advance!

Second Semi-Chorus: (chanting) They are kindling torches to fire
the halls of Tantalus; they do not shrink even from murder.

Chorus: (singing) God holds the issue in his hand, to give to mortal
men what end he will. Some mighty power is his; it was through a vengeful
fiend that this family started on its career of murder, by hurling
Myrtilus from the chariot.

But lo! I see Menelaus approaching the palace in hot haste; no doubt
he has heard what is happening here. What ho! within, descendants
of Atreus, make haste and secure the doors with bars. A man in luck
is a dangerous adversary for luckless wretches like thyself, Orestes.
(Orestes and Pylades appear on the roof, holding Hermione. Menelaus
and his attendants enter.)

Menelaus: Strange news of violent deeds done by a pair of savages,-men
I do not call them,-has brought me hither. What I heard was that my
wife was not killed after all, but had vanished out of sight,-an idle
rumour doubtless, brought to me by some dupe of his own terror; a
ruse perhaps of the matricide to turn the laugh against me.

Throw wide the palace doors! My orders to my servants are that they
force the doors, that I may rescue my child at any rate from the hands
of the murderers and recover my poor wife's corpse, that dear partner
whose slayers must die with her by my arm.

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