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Chorus Leader
Where were you Phrygians in the house to help her?
Where were you Phrygians in the house to help her?
Phrygian
With a loud cry from the house we battered down with bars the doors and doorposts where we had been,
and ran to her assistance from every direction, one with stones, another with javelins, a third with a drawn sword; but Pylades came to meet us, undaunted, like
1475
Hector of
Troy
or Ajax triple-plumed, as I saw him, saw him, in Priam’s gateway; and we met at sword’s point. But then it was very clear how the Phrygians were,
1480
how much less we were in battle strength to the Hellene might. There was one man gone in flight, another slain, another wounded, yet another pleading to stave off death; but we escaped under cover of the darkness; while some were falling, some were about to fall, and others were lying dead.
1485
And just as her unhappy mother sank to the ground to die, the luckless Hermione came in. Those two, like Bacchantes when they drop the thyrsus for a mountain cub, rushed and seized her; then turned again to the daughter of Zeus to slay her; but she had vanished from the room,
1490
passing right through the house, O Zeus and Earth and light and night! whether by magic spells or wizards’ arts or heavenly theft.
1495
What happened afterwards I do not know; for I stole out of the palace, a runaway.
So Menelaus endured his painful, painful suffering to recover his wife Helen from
Troy
to no purpose.
1500
With a loud cry from the house we battered down with bars the doors and doorposts where we had been,
and ran to her assistance from every direction, one with stones, another with javelins, a third with a drawn sword; but Pylades came to meet us, undaunted, like
1475
Hector of
Troy
or Ajax triple-plumed, as I saw him, saw him, in Priam’s gateway; and we met at sword’s point. But then it was very clear how the Phrygians were,
1480
how much less we were in battle strength to the Hellene might. There was one man gone in flight, another slain, another wounded, yet another pleading to stave off death; but we escaped under cover of the darkness; while some were falling, some were about to fall, and others were lying dead.
1485
And just as her unhappy mother sank to the ground to die, the luckless Hermione came in. Those two, like Bacchantes when they drop the thyrsus for a mountain cub, rushed and seized her; then turned again to the daughter of Zeus to slay her; but she had vanished from the room,
1490
passing right through the house, O Zeus and Earth and light and night! whether by magic spells or wizards’ arts or heavenly theft.
1495
What happened afterwards I do not know; for I stole out of the palace, a runaway.
So Menelaus endured his painful, painful suffering to recover his wife Helen from
Troy
to no purpose.
1500
Chorus Leader
And look, here is a strange sight succeeding others; for I see Orestes sword in hand before the palace,
advancing with excited steps.
1505
And look, here is a strange sight succeeding others; for I see Orestes sword in hand before the palace,
advancing with excited steps.
1505
Orestes. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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