Scene. Jocasta, at the palace gate in Thebes, hears at length the Chorus of women there calling to her, asking why she takes so long to hold her son in her arms. She sees him, she greets him, she tells him she grieves. She tells him his father, blind, looks to escape life, cursing his children. She has to tell the son, she knows, already, he is married, grieving that she could not host his wedding. She tells him that regardless of why, all these burdens fall on her.
Euripides has his chorus leader step forward, almost reassuringly, to remind that this is indeed how women respond when their life turns upside down, and they have to explain again.
"The pains of childbirth are frightening and painful/ for women. And so all women worship their children."Polyneices steps forward warily.
Mother, after careful thought, I have come/His mother Jocasta thinks it's wrong for the gods to destroy this family, where the son forced himself on the mother, so that she gave birth to children she knows are called wrong. But that's all done.
carelessley among my enemies. But no one/
can choose not to love his own native soil./
He who says otherwise loves words, not truth./
I was so frightened, I came in such fear that some ruse/
of my brother would ruin me, that I walked through this city/
clutching my sword, turning my head this way and that./
Only one thing gave me comfort: your truce, and your pledge/
that let me pass through ancestral walls. I came/
weeping, seeing after so long the seats and altars/
of the gods, the gymnasia where I was seated,/
the waters of Dirke. I have been exiled from these,/
living in a strange land, my eyes streaming tears --/
but I go from one grief to another, I see you,/
your hair cropped close, dressed in black robes./
O, my sorrows! How strange and monstrous, mother,/
is hatred within families./ [lines 358-78]*
...
ἀτὰρ τί ταῦτα; δεῖ φέρειν τὰ τῶν θεῶν.What's to do about it? One must bear these things from the gods.
The thing she wants to know though she doesn't want to hurt him in asking.
ἃ χρῄζω: διὰ πόθου δ᾽ ἐλήλυθα.These are the things I want: across desire and having come.
She wants to know what was the longing like, the reasons for return.
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Polyneices answers, he'll tell her and not leave things out.
What is your plan, what are such things to me, mother, dear.
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Jocasta will ask first then, what a thing it is to be deprived of one's country? A great badness?
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μέγιστον: ἔργῳ δ᾽ ἐστὶ μεῖζον ἢ λόγῳ.
The biggest. And it's bigger in doing than in telling.
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τίς ὁ τρόπος αὐτοῦ; τί φυγάσιν τὸ δυσχερές;
What was the turn of it? What is it they run from?
Literally, those let go, what do they flee?
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ἓν μὲν μέγιστον, οὐκ ἔχει παρρησίαν.The biggest is in not keeping all speech.
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δούλου τόδ᾽ εἶπας, μὴ λέγειν ἅ τις φρονεῖ.
The lot of a slave you say, not to speak what's on your mind.
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τὰς τῶν κρατούντων ἀμαθίας φέρειν χρεών.
The follies of the strong must be carried.
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καὶ τοῦτο λυπρόν, συνασοφεῖν τοῖς μὴ σοφοῖς.
and such misery, to join with the unskilled rather than with those skilled.
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ἀλλ᾽ ἐς τὸ κέρδος παρὰ φύσιν δουλευτέον.
another is that the reward of slavery is against nature.
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αἱ δ᾽ ἐλπίδες βόσκουσι φυγάδας, ὡς λόγος.
But hopes nourish exiles, so it's said.
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καλοῖς βλέπουσαί γ᾽ ὄμμασιν, μέλλουσι δέ.Beautiful to have seen especially with the eyes, as intended.
In other words, hopes are better realized, rather than just wanted.
To be continued...
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*Euripides, Phoenician Women ; translated Peter Burian and Brian Swann; Oxford University Press, 1981, NY
