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Menelaus
O my home, some joy I feel to see you again on my return from
Troy
, but I also grieve at the sight; for never have I seen another house more closely encircled by dire affliction.
For I learned Agamemnon’s fate and the death he died at his wife’s hands, as I was trying to put in at Malea; when the sailors’ prophet, the truthful god Glaucus, Nereus’ seer, brought the news to me from the waves;
360
he stationed himself in full view and told me this:
Menelaus, your brother lies dead, plunged in a fatal bath, the last his wife will ever give him. My sailors and I wept greatly at his words. When I arrived at
Nauplia
,
365
my wife already on the point of starting here, I was expecting to give a fond embrace to Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, and his mother, thinking that they were doing well, when I heard from a sailor the unholy murder of Tyndareus’ child.
370
And now tell me, young ladies, where to find the son of Agamemnon, who dared such evil. For he was a baby in Clytemnestra’s arms when I left my home to go to
Troy
, so that I would not recognize him if I saw him.
375
O my home, some joy I feel to see you again on my return from
Troy
, but I also grieve at the sight; for never have I seen another house more closely encircled by dire affliction.
For I learned Agamemnon’s fate and the death he died at his wife’s hands, as I was trying to put in at Malea; when the sailors’ prophet, the truthful god Glaucus, Nereus’ seer, brought the news to me from the waves;
360
he stationed himself in full view and told me this:
Menelaus, your brother lies dead, plunged in a fatal bath, the last his wife will ever give him. My sailors and I wept greatly at his words. When I arrived at
Nauplia
,
365
my wife already on the point of starting here, I was expecting to give a fond embrace to Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, and his mother, thinking that they were doing well, when I heard from a sailor the unholy murder of Tyndareus’ child.
370
And now tell me, young ladies, where to find the son of Agamemnon, who dared such evil. For he was a baby in Clytemnestra’s arms when I left my home to go to
Troy
, so that I would not recognize him if I saw him.
375
Orestes
Staggering towards him from the couch.
Menelaus, I am Orestes, whom you are asking about. I will of my own accord inform you of my sufferings. But as my first portion, I clasp your knees as a suppliant, giving you prayers from the mouth of one without the suppliant’s bough; save me, for you have come at the crisis of my troubles.
380
Menelaus, I am Orestes, whom you are asking about. I will of my own accord inform you of my sufferings. But as my first portion, I clasp your knees as a suppliant, giving you prayers from the mouth of one without the suppliant’s bough; save me, for you have come at the crisis of my troubles.
380
Orestes. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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