Most of this section is Europa's speech from the Carians. She tells how Zeus took her in the shape of a bull, names her three sons Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, and fears for Sarpedon at Troy. The rest are one-line quotations from the Cercyon, the Heralds, the Women of Crete, the Lion and the Lycurgus.
Fragments 50–56 · 311 words · click a number to copy its link
And a lush meadow gave friendly welcome to the bull. In such wise, biding where he was, did Zeus succeed in his unlaboured theft of me from my aged sire. Why the whole tale? In few words I recount it all. A mortal woman, united to a god I lost the holiness of maidenhood, but I was joined in wedlock with him who owned his children equally with me. Thrice in childbirth did I endure the pangs of womankind, and the field wherein he sowed complained not to bring forth the seed of a noble sire. First of these mighty implantings that I bare was Minos. . . . Second, I brought forth Rhadamanthys, he who of my sons is free from death; yet, though he lives, mine eyes behold him not—and to them that love, the absent bring no delight. Third was he for whom I am now sore distressed in heart, even Sarpedon; for Ares’ warlike spirit hath laid hold of him. For it is famed abroad that the choicest flower of all Hellas has come, preëminent in valorous strength, and makes loud boast that it will perforce destroy the city of the Trojans. It is for my son I fear, lest, raging with his lance, he may do and suffer some surpassing ill. For slight is this my hope—and it standeth on the razor’s edge—that by the bloody death of my child I may not lose my all.
English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth (1926). Original text: Herbert Weir Smyth (ed. and transl.), Aeschylus, vol. II (Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, Fragments), Loeb Classical Library, London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926, Selected Fragments pp. 380-521 (Greek text and facing translation).
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Aeschylus. "Fragments 50–56." Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth (1926). GreekMythology.com, 05 Oct. 2026, https://www.greekmythology.com/sources/aeschylus/fragments/carians-to-lycurgus. Accessed 05 October 2026.
Aeschylus. "Fragments 50–56." Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth (1926). GreekMythology.com, October 05, 2026. https://www.greekmythology.com/sources/aeschylus/fragments/carians-to-lycurgus.
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