Chorus Leader
Tell us clearly each event within the house. [for till now I have been guessing at what I do not clearly understand.]
Phrygian
[1395]
Ah, for Linus! Ah, for Linus! That is what barbarians say, alas, in their eastern tongue as a prelude to death, whenever royal blood is spilled upon the ground by deadly iron blades.
[1400]
To tell you everything in turn, they came into the house, two twin lions of Hellas; one was called the general's son; the other was the son of Strophius, a crafty plotter, like Odysseus, treacherous in silence,
[1405]
but true to his friends, bold for the fight, clever in war and a deadly serpent. Curse him for his quiet plotting, the villain! In they came to the throne of the wife of Paris the archer,
[1410]
faces wet with tears, and took their seats in all humility, one on this side, one on that, each with weapons. They threw, they threw their suppliant arms round the knees
[1415]
of Helen. Her Phrygian servants sprang up frantic, frantic; they called to each other in terror that there was treachery.
[1420]
To some there seemed no cause, but others thought that the viper who killed his mother was entangling the daughter of Tyndareus in the snare of his plot.
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Table of Contents:
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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