Euripides' SUPPLIANTS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

53 pages - You are on Page 30

Messenger: Bright shone the sun, one levelled line of light, upon
the world, as by Electra's gate I stood to watch, from a turret with
a far outlook. And lo! I saw the host in three divisions, deploying
its mail-clad warriors on the high ground by the banks of Ismenus;
this last I heard; and with them was the king himself, famous son
of Aegeus; his own men, natives of old Cecropia, were ranged upon
the right; while on the left, hard by the fountain of Ares, were the
dwellers by the sea, harnessed spearmen they; on either wing were
posted cavalry, in equal numbers, and chariots were stationed in the
shelter of Amphion's holy tomb. Meantime, the folk of Cadmus set themselves
before the walls, placing in the rear the bodies for which they fought.
Horse to horse, and car to car stood ranged. Then did the herald of
Theseus cry aloud to all: "Be still, ye folk! hush, ye ranks of Cadmus,
hearken! we are come to fetch the bodies of the slain, wishing to
bury them in observance of the universal law of Hellas; no wish have
we to lengthen out the slaughter." Not a word would Creon let his
herald answer back, but there he stood in silence under arms. Then
did the drivers of the four-horse cars begin the fray; on, past each
other they drave their chariots, bringing the warriors at their sides
up into line. Some fought with swords, some wheeled the horses back
to the fray again for those they drove. Now when Phorbas, who captained
the cavalry of the Erechtheidae, saw the thronging chariots, he and
they who had the charge of the Theban horse met hand to hand, and
by turns were victors and vanquished. The many horrors happening there
I saw, not merely heard about, for I was at the spot where the chariots
and their riders met and fought, but which to tell of first I know
not,-the clouds of dust that mounted to the sky, the warriors tangled
in the reins and dragged this way and that, the streams of crimson
gore, when men fell dead, or when, from shattered chariot-seats, they
tumbled headlong to the ground, and, amid the splinters of their cars,
gave up the ghost. But Creon, when he marked our cavalry's success
on one wing, caught up a shield and rushed into the fray, ere that
despondency should seize his men; but not for that did Theseus recoil
in fear; no! snatching up at once his glittering harnes he hied him
on.

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