Sophocles' TRACHINIAE Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

57 Pages

Page 13

Leader of the Chorus: Now, O Queen, thy joy is assured; part is with
thee, and thou hast promise of the rest.

Deianeira: Yea, have I not the fullest reason to rejoice at these
tidings of my lord's happy fortune? To such fortune, such joy must
needs respond. And yet a prudent mind can see room for misgiving lest
he who prospers should one day suffer reverse. A strange pity hath
come over me, friends, at the sight of these ill-fated exiles, homeless
and fatherless in a foreign land; once the daughters, perchance, of
free-born sires, but now doomed to the life of slaves. O Zeus, who
turnest the tide of battle, never may I see child of mine thus visited
by thy hand; nay, if such visitation is to be, may it not fall while
Deianeira lives! Such dread do I feel, beholding these. (To Iole)
Ah, hapless girl, say, who art thou? A maiden, or a mother? To judge
by thine aspect, an innocent maiden, and of a noble race. Lichas,
whose daughter is this stranger? Who is her mother, who her sire?
Speak, I pity her more than all the rest, when I behold her; as she
alone shows due feeling for her plight.

Lichas: How should I know? Why should'st thou ask me? Perchance the
off, spring of not the meanest in yonder land.

Deianeira: Can she be of royal race? Had Eurytus a daughter?

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