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While in the house the old blind man, always possessed by his tearful longing for the pair of brothers estranged from the home,
rushed to kill himself with the sword or by the noose suspended over his chamber-roof, moaning his curses on his sons;
330
and now he hides himself in darkness, always weeping and lamenting. And you, my child, I hear you have married and are begetting children to your joy in a foreign home,
335
and are courting a foreign alliance, a ceaseless regret to me your mother and to Laius your ancestor, ruin brought by your marriage. I was not the one who lit for you the marriage-torch,
340
the custom in marriage for a happy mother; Ismenus had no part at your wedding in supplying the luxurious bath, and there was silence through the streets of
Thebes
, at the entrance of your bride.
345
Curses on them! whether the sword or strife or your father that is to blame, or heaven’s visitation that has burst riotously upon the house of Oedipus; for on me has come all the anguish of these evils.
350
While in the house the old blind man, always possessed by his tearful longing for the pair of brothers estranged from the home,
rushed to kill himself with the sword or by the noose suspended over his chamber-roof, moaning his curses on his sons;
330
and now he hides himself in darkness, always weeping and lamenting. And you, my child, I hear you have married and are begetting children to your joy in a foreign home,
335
and are courting a foreign alliance, a ceaseless regret to me your mother and to Laius your ancestor, ruin brought by your marriage. I was not the one who lit for you the marriage-torch,
340
the custom in marriage for a happy mother; Ismenus had no part at your wedding in supplying the luxurious bath, and there was silence through the streets of
Thebes
, at the entrance of your bride.
345
Curses on them! whether the sword or strife or your father that is to blame, or heaven’s visitation that has burst riotously upon the house of Oedipus; for on me has come all the anguish of these evils.
350
The Phoenician Women. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.