EURIPIDES
/You would have had an excuse for another wedding.
Faith in your word has gone. Indeed, I cannot tell
Whether you think the gods whose names you swore by
then
Have ceased to rule and that new standards are set up,
Since you must know you have broken your word to me, 495
0 my right hand, and the knees which you often clasped
In supplication, how senselessly I am treated
By this bad man, and how my hopes have missed their
mark!
Come, I will share my thoughts as though you were a
friend—
You! Can I think that you would ever treat me well? 500
But I will do it, and these questions will make you
Appear the baser. ^Vhere am I to go? To my father's?
Him I betrayed and his land when I came with you.
To Pelias' wretched daughters? What a fine welcome
They would prepare for me who murdered their father! 505
For this is my position—hated by my friends
At home, I have, in kindness to you, made enemies
Of others whom there was no need to have injured.,)
And how happy among Greek women you have made me
On your side for all this! A distinguished husband 510
1 have—for breaking promises. When in misery
I am cast out of the land and go into exile,
Quite without friends and all alone with my children,
That will be a fine shame for the new-wedded groom,
For his children to wander as beggars and she who saved
him. 515
O God, you have given to mortals a sure method
Of telling the gold that is pure from the counterfeit;
Why is there no mark engraved upon men's bodies,
. By which we could know the true ones from the false
ones?
Chorus
' It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure, 520
When two friends turn upon each other in hatred. )
88 -7