Euripides' HERACLES Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

63 pages - You are on Page 5

Chorus: (chanting, strophe)

To the sheltering roof, to the old man's couch, leaning on my staff
have I set forth, chanting a plaintive dirge like some bird grown
grey, I that am but a voice and nothing more, a fancy bred of the
visions of sleep by night, palsied with age, yet meaning kindly. All
hail! ye orphaned babes! all hail, old friend thou too, -unhappy mother,
wailing for thy husband in the halls of Hades!

(antistrophe)

Faint not too soon upon your way, nor let your limbs grow weary,
even as a colt beneath the yoke grows weary as he mounts some stony
hill, dragging the weight of a wheeled car. Take hold of hand or robe,
whoso feels his footsteps falter. Old friend, escort another like
thyself, who erst amid his toiling peers in the days of our youth
would take his place beside thee, no blot upon his country's glorious
record.

See, how like their father's sternly flash these children's eyes!
Misfortune, God wot, hath not failed his children, nor yet hath his
comeliness been denied them. O Hellas! if thou lose these, of what
allies wilt thou rob thyself!

Leader of the Chorus: But I see Lycus, the ruler of this land, drawing
near the house. (Lycus and his attendants enter.)

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Heracles

Euripides Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles

Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/euripides/heracles.asp?pg=5