Stasimon 5
[Choral]
Lo! E’en now our prince is being carried on a bier from Delphi’s land unto his home. Woe for him and his sad fate, and woe for thee, old sire! for this is not the welcome thou wouldst give Achilles’ son,
Chorus
the lion’s whelp; thyself too by this sad mischanceκύρσας is probably corrupt. Nauck omits it, and marks a lacuna. dost share his evil lot.
1170
[Choral 1]
Ah! woe is me! here is a sad sight for me to see and take unto my halls!
Peleus
Ah me! ah me! I am undone, thou city of Thessaly! My line now ends; I have no children left me in my home. Oh! the sorrows I seem born to endure! What
1175
friend can I look to for relief? Ah, dear lips, and cheeks, and hands! Would thy destiny had slain thee ’neath Ilium’s walls beside the banks of Simois!
1180
Chorus
Had he so died, my aged lord, he had won him honour thereby,
and thine had been the happier lot.
1185
Peleus
O marriage, marriage, woe to thee! thou bane of my home, thou destroyerὤλεσας ὤλεσας ἀμὰν (Hermann). of my city! Ah my child, my boy! wouldPaley has a long note on this passage, the sum of which seems to be that it is corrupt and unintelligible. Various emendation, all unsatisfactory, have been proposed. I have followed Hermann’s correction, the sense of which is thus given by Paley, would that your union with the captive Andromache had not involved you in the death intended for her;reading ὤφελ᾽ ἐμοὶ γέρας κ.τ.λ. that the honour of wedding thee,
fraught with evil as it was to my children and house, had not thrown oer thee, my son, Hermiones deadly net! O that the thunderbolt had slain her sooner! and that thou, rash mortal, hadst never charged
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the great god Phoebus with aiming that murderous shaft that spilt thy hero-fathers blood!Phoebus was said to have aimed the arrow of Paris, that slew Achilles.
1195
[Choral 2]
Woe! woe! alas! With due observance of funeral rites will I begin the mourning for my dead master.
Peleus
Alack and well-a-day! I take up the tearful dirge, ah me! old and wretched as I am.
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Chorus
’Tis Heaven’s decree; God willed this heavy stroke.
thou hast left me all alone in my halls,Nauck reads δόμον ἔλιπες ἔρημον. old and childless by thy loss.
1205
Chorus
Thou shouldst have died, old sire, before thy children.
Peleus
Shall I not tear my hair,
and smite upon my head with grievous blows? O city! of both my childrenAchilles his son, and Neoptolemus his grandson. hath Phoebus robbed me.
1210
Chorus
What evils thou hast suffered, what sorrows thou hast seen, thou poor old man!
what shall be thy life hereafter?
1215
Peleus
Childless, desolate, with no limit to my grief, I must drain the cup of woe, until I die.
Chorus
’Twas all in vain the gods wished thee joy on thy wedding day.The gods had attended the marriage of Peleus and Thetis.
Peleus
All my hopes have flown away,
fallen short of my high boasts.
1220
Chorus
A lonely dweller in a lonely home art thou.
Peleus
I have no city any longer;οὐκέτ᾽ ἐστί μοι πόλις (Hermann). there! on the ground my sceptre do I cast; and thou, daughter of Nereus, neath thy dim grotto,
shalt see me grovelling in the dust,γᾷ πίτνοντα μ᾽ ὄψει (Hermann). a ruined king.
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