The phoenician women monologue essay

A monologue from the play by Euripides

BE AWARE: This monologue is published from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. 2. Trans. Shelley Dean Milman. London: M. M. Dent & Daughters, 1922.

JOCASTA: Believe me, O Eteocles my boy

Old age can be not by simply wretchedness alone

Attended: more discreetly than rash youngsters

Experience speaks. Why dost thou woo ambition

That a lot of malignant empress? O bear!

For she\s a foe to justice, and hath entered

Total many a mansion, many a prosperous city

Nor left them till in wreck she involves

All those who have harbour her: yet this is certainly she

Upon whom thou doat\st. \Twere better, O my son

To develop equality, who also joins

Close friends, cities, heroes, in one working league

Intended for by the laws and regulations of nature, through the world

Equality was \stablished: but the wealthy

Finds in the lesser man a consant foe

Hence bitter enmity comes its resource.

Equality, among the list of human race

Measures, and dumbbells, and amounts hath ordained:

Both the dark orb of night and radiant sunlight

Their total annual circuits similarly perform

Each, free from be jealous of, to the various other yields

At the same time, thus night and day afford

Their services to man. Yet wilt not really thou

Always be satisfied to hold an equal part

Of these domains, and to thy brother offer

His due. Where then simply is rights? Such respect

As sober reason disapproves, why pay\st thou

To empire, to oppression crowned with success?

To be a public spectacle thou deem\st

Were honourable. \Tis but vacant pride.

When thou hast much previously, why submit

To toils unnumbered? What\s superfluous prosperity

But merely a name? Enough to the smart

Is competence: for person possesses nothing

Which he can call his own. Even though for a time

What bounty the indulgent gods bestow

We all manage, that they resume this at all their will:

Volatile riches fade in a day.

Should I to thee th\ option propose

Both to reign, or preserve thy native land

Couldst thou reply that thou hadst alternatively reign?

But if he conquer, and the Argive spears

O\erpower the squadrons who coming from Cadmus early spring

Thou wilt behold Thebes taken, wilt behold

Each of our captive virgins ravished by foe:

That empire which in turn thou seek\st will confirm the levnedsl?b

Of thy loved country, yet thou still persist\st

In mischievous ambition\s crazy career.

Thus far to the. And now to you personally I speak

O Polynices, favours many unwise

Will be those Adrastus hath upon you bestowed

And with misjudging fury will you be come

To spread terrible havoc o\er your local land.

In the event you (which may well the righteous gods avoid! )

This city consider, how will you back the trophies

Of such a struggle? How, for those who have laid

The country waste materials, th\ initiatory rites

Execute, and kill the patients? On the financial institutions

Of Inachus displayed, with what inscription

Decorate the spoilsFrom blazing Thebes these glasses

Hath Polynices won, also to the gods

Devoted? Hardly ever, O my son, through Greece

May possibly you obtain this kind of glory. But if you

Are vanquished and Eteocles dominate

To Argos, leaving the ensanguined field

Strewn with unnumbered corses of the slain

How can you flee for succour? \Twill be said

Simply by some malignant tongue: A curst connections

Is this which usually, O Adrastus, thou hast formed:

We all to the wedding of one virgin mobile owe

The ruin. You are speeding, O my son

To a twofold mischief: losing almost all

That you strive, and leading to your brave friends

To perish. Um my daughters, this crazy excess

Of rage, with joint event, lay besides.

By equivalent folly once two chiefs inspired

To battle rush, dreadful mischief need to ensue.

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