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Helen
Dear friends, I welcome your advice. Come in, come into the house, to learn within about my struggles.
330
Dear friends, I welcome your advice. Come in, come into the house, to learn within about my struggles.
330
Chorus
You are calling on one who is wholly willing.
You are calling on one who is wholly willing.
Helen
Oh, what an unhappy day! What tearful word shall I hear, unhappy as I am?
335
Oh, what an unhappy day! What tearful word shall I hear, unhappy as I am?
335
Chorus
Do not be a prophetess of sorrow, dear friend, anticipating lamentation.
Do not be a prophetess of sorrow, dear friend, anticipating lamentation.
Helen
What has my poor husband suffered? Does he see the light and the sun’s chariot and the paths of the stars? Or does he have a lasting fate
340
among the dead beneath the earth?
345
What has my poor husband suffered? Does he see the light and the sun’s chariot and the paths of the stars? Or does he have a lasting fate
340
among the dead beneath the earth?
345
Chorus
Take a brighter view of the future, whatever will happen.
Take a brighter view of the future, whatever will happen.
Helen
For I call on you, I swear to you, Eurotas green with watery reeds,
if this rumor of my husband’s death is true—and what was obscure in those words?—I will stretch a deadly noose about my neck, or drive inward a murderous thrust of slaughter that gushes from the throat,
350
a contest of the blade through my flesh, as a sacrifice to the three goddesses and to the son of Priam, who once sat on the hollows of Ida, near the ox-stalls.
355
For I call on you, I swear to you, Eurotas green with watery reeds,
if this rumor of my husband’s death is true—and what was obscure in those words?—I will stretch a deadly noose about my neck, or drive inward a murderous thrust of slaughter that gushes from the throat,
350
a contest of the blade through my flesh, as a sacrifice to the three goddesses and to the son of Priam, who once sat on the hollows of Ida, near the ox-stalls.
355
Chorus
May sorrow be turned aside elsewhere, and may your lot be fortunate!
360
May sorrow be turned aside elsewhere, and may your lot be fortunate!
360
Helen. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1906.
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