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Scythian Archer
He speaks with a heavy foreign accent
You shall stay here in the open air to wail. Mnesilochus
Archer, I adjure you. Scythian Archer
You're wasting your breath. Mnesilochus
Loosen the wedge a little. Scythian Archer
Aye, certainly. Mnesilochus
Oh! by the gods! why, you are driving it in tighter. Scythian Archer
[1005] Is that enough? Mnesilochus
Oh! Oh! Ow! Ow! May the plague take you! Scythian Archer
Silence! you cursed old wretch! I am going to get a mat to lie upon, so as to watch you close at hand at my ease. Mnesilochus
Ah! what exquisite pleasures Euripides is securing for me! But, oh, ye gods! oh, Zeus the Deliverer, all is not yet lost! [1010] I don't believe him the man to break his word; I just caught sight of him appearing in the form of Perseus, and he told me with a mysterious sign to turn myself into Andromeda. And in truth am I not really bound? It's certain, then, that [1015] he is coming to my rescue; for otherwise he would not have steered his flight this way.
Euripides
As Andromeda, singing
Oh Nymphs, ye virgins who are so dear to me, how am I to approach him? how can I escape the sight of this Scythian? And Echo, thou who reignest in the inmost recesses of the caves, [1020] oh! favour my cause and permit me to approach my spouse. *mnhsi/loxos
A pitiless ruffian has chained up the most unfortunate of mortal maids. Alas! I had barely escaped the filthy claws of an old fury, [1025] when another mischance overtook me! This Scythian does not take his eye off me and he has exposed me as food for the crows. Alas! what is to become of me, alone here and without friends! I am not [1030] seen mingling in the dances nor in the games of my companions, but heavily loaded with fetters I am given over to the voracity of a Glaucetes. Sing no bridal hymn for me, oh women, [1035] but rather the hymn of captivity, and in tears. Ah! how I suffer! great gods! how I suffer! Alas! alas! and through my own relatives too! My misery would make Tartarus dissolve into tears! Alas! in my terrible distress, [1040] I implore the mortal who first shaved me and depilated me, then dressed me in this long robe, [1045] and then sent me to this Temple into the midst of the women, to save me. Oh! thou pitiless Fate! I am then accursed, great gods! Ah! who would not be moved at the sight of the appalling tortures under which I succumb? [1050] Would that the blazing shaft of the lightning would wither ... this barbarian for me! The immortal light has no further charm for my eyes since I have been descending [1055] the shortest path to the dead, tied up, strangled, and maddened with pain.
Aristophanes. Women at the Thesmophoria. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. 1938.
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