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Now aforetime for all my misery I ever had a hope to lead me on, that, if my child were safe, I might find some help and protection from my woes; but since my lord hath wedded that Spartan Hermione
1
in scorn of his bondmaid’s charms, I am tormented by her most cruelly; for she saith that I by secret enchantment am making her barren and distasteful to her husband, and that I design to take her place in this house,
30
ousting her the rightful mistress by force; whereas I at first submitted against my will and now have resigned my place; be almighty Zeus my witness that
2
it was not of my own free will I became her rival!
35
But I cannot convince her, and she longs to kill me,
and her father Menelaus is an accomplice in this. E’en now is he within, arrived from Sparta for this very purpose, while I in terror am come to take up a position here in the shrine of Thetis adjoining the house, if haply it may save me from death;
40
for Peleus and his descendants hold it in honour as a symbol of his marriage with the Nereid. My only son am I secretly conveying to a neighbour’s house in fear for his life. For his sire stands not by my side
45
to lend his aid and cannot avail his child at all, being absent in the land of Delphi, where he is offering recompense to Loxias for the madness he committed, when on a day he went to Pytho and demanded of Phoebus satisfaction
3
for his father’s death,
4
if haply his prayer might avert those past sins
50
and win for him the god’s goodwill hereafter.
55
Now aforetime for all my misery I ever had a hope to lead me on, that, if my child were safe, I might find some help and protection from my woes; but since my lord hath wedded that Spartan Hermione
1
in scorn of his bondmaid’s charms, I am tormented by her most cruelly; for she saith that I by secret enchantment am making her barren and distasteful to her husband, and that I design to take her place in this house,
30
ousting her the rightful mistress by force; whereas I at first submitted against my will and now have resigned my place; be almighty Zeus my witness that
2
it was not of my own free will I became her rival!
35
But I cannot convince her, and she longs to kill me,
and her father Menelaus is an accomplice in this. E’en now is he within, arrived from Sparta for this very purpose, while I in terror am come to take up a position here in the shrine of Thetis adjoining the house, if haply it may save me from death;
40
for Peleus and his descendants hold it in honour as a symbol of his marriage with the Nereid. My only son am I secretly conveying to a neighbour’s house in fear for his life. For his sire stands not by my side
45
to lend his aid and cannot avail his child at all, being absent in the land of Delphi, where he is offering recompense to Loxias for the madness he committed, when on a day he went to Pytho and demanded of Phoebus satisfaction
3
for his father’s death,
4
if haply his prayer might avert those past sins
50
and win for him the god’s goodwill hereafter.
55
Andromache. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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