Chorus
Happy are they who find the goddess come in moderate might, sharing with self-restraint
in Aphrodite’s gift of marriage and enjoying calm and rest from frenzied passions, where the Love-god, golden-haired, stretches his charmed bow with twin arrows,
545
and one is aimed at happiness, the other at life’s confusion. O lady Cypris, queen of beauty! far from my bridal bower I ban the last. Be mine delight in moderation
550
and pure desires, and may I have a share in love, but shun excess!
555
Chorus
Men’s natures vary, and their habits differ,
but virtue is always manifest. Likewise the training that come of education conduces greatly to virtue; for not only is modesty wisdom, but it has also the rare grace
1
560
of seeing by its better judgment what is right; whereby a glory, ever young, is shed over life by reputation. A great thing it is to hunt virtue, for women when they love
565
secretly; while in men, an inborn sense of order, shown in countless ways,
2
adds to a city’s greatness.
570
Chorus
You came, O
Paris
, to the place where you were reared to herd the cows
among the white heifers of Ida, piping in foreign strain and breathing on your reeds an echo of the Phrygian airs
Olympus
played. Full-uddered cows were browsing at the spot
575
Iphigenia in Aulis. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.