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Chorus Leader
[But the bolts of the palace-doors rattle; be silent; for one of the Phrygians is coming out, from whom we will inquire how it is within.] The Phrygian Eunuch enters from the palace, expressing the most abject terror. His lines are sung, in answer to the Chorus' spoken questions.
Phrygian
I have escaped from death by Argive sword, [1370] in my Asian slippers, by clambering over the cedar-beams that roof the porch and the Doric triglyphs, away, away! O Earth, Earth! in barbaric flight! [1375] Alas! You foreign women, where can I escape, flying through the clear sky or over the sea, which bull-headed Ocean rolls about as he circles the world in his embrace? Chorus Leader
[1380] What is it, Helen's slave, creature from Ida? Phrygian
Ilium, Ilium, oh me! city of Phrygia, and Ida's holy hill with fruitful soil, how I mourn for your destruction [a shrill song] [1385] with barbarian cry; destroyed through her beauty, born from a bird, swan-feathered, Leda's cub, hellish Helen! to be a curse to Apollo's tower of polished stone. Ah! Alas! [1390] woe to Dardania, its wailing, wailing, for the horsemanship of Ganymede, bedfellow of Zeus.
Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 2. Orestes, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.
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