Euripides' PHOENISSAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

81 pages - You are on Page 23

Jocasta: Eteocles, my child, it is not all evil that attends old age;
sometimes its experience can offer sager counsel than can youth. Oh
why, my son, art thou so set upon Ambition, that worst of deities?
Forbear; that goddess knows not justice; many are the homes and cities
once prosperous that she hath entered and left after the ruin of her
votaries; she it is thou madly followest. Better far, my son, prize
Equality that ever linketh friend to friend, city to city, and allies
to each other; for Equality is man's natural law; but the less is
always in opposition to the greater, ushering in the dayspring of
dislike. For it is Equality that hath set up for man measures and
divisions of weights and hath distinguished numbers; night's sightless
orb, and radiant sun proceed upon their yearly course on equal terms,
and neither of them is envious when it has to yield. Though sun and
gloom then both are servants in man's interests, wilt not thou be
content with thy fair share of thy heritage and give the same to him?
if not, why where is justice? Why prize beyond its worth the monarch's
power, injustice in prosperity? why think so much of the admiring
glances turned on rank? Nay, 'tis vanity. Or wouldst thou by heaping
riches in thy halls, heap up toil therewith? what advantage is it?
'tis but a name; for the wise find that enough which suffices for
their wants. Man indeed hath no possessions of his own; we do but
hold a stewardship of the gods' property; and when they will, they
take it back again. Riches make no settled home, but are as transient
as the day. Come, suppose I put before thee two alternatives, whether
thou wilt rule or save thy city? Wilt thou say "Rule"?

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