ALCE STIS
the right of dying for your child. The time of life
you had left for your living was short, in any case, 650
and she and I would still be living out our time
and I should not be hurt and grieving over her.
And yet, all that a man could have to bless his life
you have had. You had your youth in kingship. There
was I
your son, ready to take it over, keep your house 655
in order, so you had no childless death to fear,
with the house left to be torn apart by other claims.
You cannot justify your leaving me to death
on grounds that I disrespected your old age. Always I
showed all consideration. See what thanks 1 get 660
from you and from the woman who gave me birth. Go on,
get you other children, you cannot do it too soon,
who will look after your old age, and lay you out
when you are dead, and see you buried properly,
I will not do it. This hand will never bury you. 665
I am dead as far as you are concerned, and if, because
I found another savior, I still look on the sun,
I count myself that person's child and fond support.
It is meaningless, the way the old men pray for death
and complain of age and the long time they have to live. 670
Let death only come close, not one of them still wants
to die. Their age is not a burden any more.
.h***
Chorus
Stop, stop. We have trouble enough already, child.
You will exasperate your father with this talk.
Pheres
My son, what do you take me for that you address me 675
like this? Some Lydian slave, some Phrygian that you
bought?
I am a free Thessalian noble, nobly born
from a Thessalian. Are you forgetting that? You go
too far with your high-handedness. You volley brash
words at me, and fail to hit me, and then run away. 680
43