Suppliants
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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avenging the slaughter of your dead sires; thou too, Aegialeus, shalt take thy father’s place and in thy youth command the host, and with thee Tydeus’ son marching from Aetolia,—him whom his father named Diomedes. Soon as the beards your cheeks o’ershadow
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must ye lead an armed Danaid host against the battlements of Thebes with sevenfold gates. For to their sorrow shall ye come like lion’s whelps in full-grown might to sack their city. No otherwise is it to be;
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and ye shall be a theme for minstrels’ songs in days to come, known through Hellas as the After-born so famous shall your expedition be, thanks to Heaven.
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Theseus
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Queen Athena, I will hearken to thy bidding; for thou it is dost set me up, so that I go not astray. And I will bind this monarch by an oath; do thou but guide my
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steps aright. For if thou art friendly to our state, we shall henceforth live secure.
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Chorus
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Let us go, Adrastus, and take the oath to this monarch and his state; for the service they have already done us claims our warm regard.
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Chorus
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Thou too, honoured lady, once a son didst bear,
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crowning thy lord’s marriage with fond joy; then share, O share with me thy mother’s feelings, in such measure as my sad heart grieves for my own dead sons;
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and persuade thy son, whose aid we implore, to go unto the river Ismenus, there to place within my hapless arms the bodies of my children, slain in their prime and left without a tomb.Translating from Elmsley’s emendation of this corrupt passage, θαλερῶν σῶμα ταλαίνας ἄταφον.
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Chorus
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ThoughBecause they had arrived during a festival, and their supplication at such a time was a bad omen. not as piety enjoins, yet from sheer necessity I have come to the fire-crowned altars of the gods, falling on my knees with instant supplication,
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for my cause is just, and ’tis in thy power, blest as thou art in thy children, to remove from me my woe; so in my sore distress I do beseech thee of my misery place in my hands my son’s
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dead body, that I may throw my arms about his hapless limbs.
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Chorus
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For pious toil is a fair ornament to cities, and carries with it a grace that never wastes away.
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What will the city decide, I wonder? Will it conclude a friendly truce with me, and shall we obtain burial for our sons?
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Chorus
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Help, O help, city of Pallas, the mother’s cause, that so they may not pollute the laws of all mankind. Thou, I know, dost reverence right, and to injustice dealest out
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defeat, a protection at all times to the afflicted.
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1st Half-Chorus
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Would I could reach yon plains with turrets crowned, leaving Callichorus, fountain of the goddess!
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2nd Half-Chorus
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O that some god would give me wings to fly to the city of rivers twain!
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1st Half-Chorus
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So might’st thou see and know the fortunes of thy friends.
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2nd Half-Chorus
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What fate, what issue there awaits the valiant
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monarch of this land?
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1st Half-Chorus
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Once more do we invoke the gods we called upon before; yea, in our fear this is our first and chiefest trust.
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2nd Half-Chorus
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O Zeus, father to the child the heifer-mother bore in days long past, that daughter of Inachus!
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1st Half-Chorus
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O be gracious, I pray, and champion this city!
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2nd Half-Chorus
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’Tis thy own darling, thy own settler in the city of Argos that IReading ἐκκομίζομαι, MS., but Musgrave’s emendation, ἐκκόμιζέ μοι is very probably right. am striving to rescue for the funeral pyre from outrageous insult.
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Adrastus
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Mothers, raise the wail for the dead departed;
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cry in answer when ye hear my note of woe.
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Chorus
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My sons, my sons! O bitter words for loving mothers to address to you! To thee, my lifeless child, I call.
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Adrastus
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Woe! woe!
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Chorus
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Ah me, my sufferings!
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Adrastus
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Alas!
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Chorus
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A lacuna in the MS.
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Adrastus
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We have endured, alas!—
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Chorus
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Sorrows most grievous.
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Adrastus
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O citizens of Argos! do ye not behold my fate?
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Chorus
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They see thee, and me the hapless mother,
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reft of her children.
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Adrastus
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Bring near the blood-boltered corpses of those hapless chiefs, foully slain by foes unworthy, with whom lay the decision of the contest.
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Chorus
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Let me embrace and hold my children to my bosom in my enfolding arms.
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Adrastus
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There, there! thou hast—
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Chorus
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Sorrows heavy enough to bear.
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Adrastus
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Ah me!
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Chorus
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Thy groans mingle with those of their parents.Reading with Hartung τοῖς τεκοῦσς’ ὁμοῦ λέγεις.
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Adrastus
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Hear me.
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Chorus
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O’er both of us thou dost lament.
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Adrastus
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Would God the Theban ranks had laid me dead in the dust!
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Chorus
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Oh that I had ne’er been wedded to a husband!
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Children
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Thy sons are dead and gone. Poor mother!
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dead and gone; the boundless air now wraps them round.The second half of this line is assigned to the Chorus in the Greek.
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Chorus
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Turned to ashes by the flame, they have winged their flight to Hades.These lines are assigned to the Chorus in the Greek.
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Children
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Father, thou hearest thy children’s lamentation; say, shall I e’er, as warrior dight, avenge thy slaughter?
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Chorus
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God grant it, O my child!
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Children
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Some day, if god so will, shall the avenging of my father be my task; not yet this sorrow sleeps.
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Chorus
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Alas! Fortune’s sorrows are enough for me, I have troubles and to spare already.
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Children
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Shall Asopus’ laughing tide ever reflect my brazen arms as I lead on my Argive troops?
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Chorus
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To avenge thy fallen sire.
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Chorus
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Behold a rivalry in sorrow! woe takes up the tale of woe; hark! thy servants beat their breasts. Come ye who join the mourners’ wail, come, O sympathetic band, to join the dance,
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which Hades honours; let theHartung proposes to read διὰ παρῆδος ὄνθχα τίθετε φόνιον, αἱματοῦτε χρόα τε λευκόν, but I have followed Paley’s text, which gives a possible meaning. pearly nail be stained red, as it rends your cheeks, let your skin be streaked with gore; for honours rendered to the dead are a creditReading κόσμος, which Hartung alters to κῆδος. to the living.
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Chorus
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Sorrow’s charm doth drive me wild, insatiate, painful,
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endless, even as the trickling stream that gushes from some steep rock’s face; for ’tis woman’s way to fall a-weeping o’er
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the cruel calamity of children dead. Ah me! would I could die and forget my anguish!
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Children
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Methinks I see thee still before my eyes, my father—
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Chorus
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Printing a loving kiss upon thy cheek.
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Children
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But thy words of exhortation are borne on the winds away.
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Chorus
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Two mourners hath he left behind, thy mother and thee, bequeathing to thee an endless legacy of grief for thy father.
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Children
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The weight of grief I have to bear hath crushed me utterly.
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Chorus
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Come, let me clasp the ashes of my son to my bosom.
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Children
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I weep to hear that piteous word; it stabs me to the heart.
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Chorus
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My child, thou art undone; no more shall I behold thee, thy own fond mother’s treasure.
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Chorus
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. . . . Something is lost here, referring to the claims of relationship. The sense perhaps is, thou art thyself related to Pittheus, who was, etc. who was Pelops’ son, and we are of the land of Pelops and share with thee the blood of ancestors.
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Theseus
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’Tis not for thee their sorrows to lament.
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Theseus
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Thou art not of their company.
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Adrastus
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Abandoned wretch!
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’Tis time for all to start,
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Adrastus
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Hermann detected the loss of a line here. Subsequent editors have followed his hint.