Euripides' SUPPLIANTS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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53 pages - You are on Page 38

Chorus: Our nails have ploughed our cheeks in furrows, and o'er our
heads have we strewn ashes.

Adrastus: Ah me! ah me! Oh that earth's floor would swallow me, or
the whirlwind snatch me away, or Zeus's flaming bolt descend upon
my head!

Chorus: Bitter the marriages thou didst witness, bitter the oracle
of Phoebus! The curse of Oedipus, fraught with sorrow, after desolating
his house, is come on thee.

Theseus: I meant to question thee when thou wert venting thy lamentations
to the host, but I will let it pass; yet, though I dropped the matter
then and left it alone, I now do ask Adrastus, "Of what lineage sprang
those youths, to shine so bright in chivalry?" Tell it to our younger
citizens of thy fuller wisdom, for thou art skilled to know. Myself
beheld their daring deeds, too high for words to tell, whereby they
thought to capture Thebes. One question will I spare thee, lest I
provoke thy laughter; the foe that each of them encountered in the
fray, the spear from which each received his death-wound. These be
idle tales alike for those who hear or him who speaks, that any man
amid the fray, when clouds of darts are hurtling before his eyes,
should declare for certain who each champion is. I could not ask such
questions, nor yet believe those who dare assert the like; for when
a man is face to face with the foe, he scarce can see even that which
'tis his bounden duty to observe.

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