Euripides' SUPPLIANTS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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53 pages - You are on Page 47

Chorus: (chanting) O lady, thou hast done a fearful deed!

Iphis: Ah me! I am undone, ye dames of Argos!

Chorus: (chanting) Alack, alack! a cruel blow is this to thee, but
thou must yet witness, poor wretch, the full horror of this deed.

Iphis: A more unhappy wretch than me ye could not find.

Chorus: (chanting) Woe for thee, unhappy man! Thou, old sir, hast
been made partaker in the fortune of Oedipus, thou and my poor city
too.

Iphis: Ah, why are mortal men denied this boon, to live their youth
twice o'er, and twice in turn to reach old age? If aught goes wrong
within our homes, we set it right by judgment more maturely formed,
but our life we may not so correct. Now if we had a second spell of
youth and age, this double term of life would let us then correct
each previous slip. For I, seeing others blest with children, longed
to have them too, and found my ruin in that wish. Whereas if I had
had present experience, and by a father's light had learnt how cruel
a thing it is to be bereft of children, never should have fallen on
such evil days as these,-I who did beget a brave young son, proud
parent that I was, and after all am now bereft of him. Enough of this.
What remains for such a hapless wretch as me? Shall I to my home,
there to see its utter desolation and the blank within my life? or
shall to the halls of that dead Capaneus?-halls I smiled to see in
days gone by, when yet my daughter was alive. But she is lost and
gone, she that would ever draw down my cheek to her lips, and take
my head between her hands; for naught is there more sweet unto an
aged sire than a daughter's love; our sons are made of sterner stuff,
but less winning are their caresses. Oh! take me to my house at once,
in darkness hide me there, to waste and fret this aged frame with
fasting! What shall it avail me to touch my daughter's bones? Old
age, resistless foe, how do I loathe thy presence! Them too I hate,
whoso desire to lengthen out the span of life, seeking to turn the
tide of death aside by philtres, drugs, and magic spells,-folk that
death should take away to leave the young their place, when they no
more can benefit the world. (Iphis departs. A procession enters from
the direction of the pyre, led by the Children of the slain chieftains,
who carry the ashes of their fathers in funeral urns. The following
lines between the Chorus and the Children are chanted responsively.)

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