Deianeira Yes, how would I not rejoice with dutiful spirit, when I hear of my husband’s successful venture? My rejoicing is bound to keep pace with his success. And yet a prudent mind can see room for fear, lest he who prospers should one day stumble. For a strange pity came over me, friends, at the sight of these ill-fated exiles, homeless and fatherless in a foreign land. Though they were once the daughters perhaps of freeborn men, they now live the life of slaves. O Zeus, god who turns the tide of battle, may I never see you stalking against a child of my line on any occasion; no, if you do some such thing, let it not be while I am still alive! So great is my fear, as I look upon these girls.
Unfortunate girl, who are you? Are you without a man, or are you a mother? To judge by your appearance, you are untried in those roles, but someone of noble birth. Lichas, whose daughter is this stranger? Who is her mother, who the father who begot her? Speak; I pity her more than all the rest, when I look at her, inasmuch as she alone knows self-control.
Lichas Why would I know? Why would you ask me? Perhaps she is the offspring of not the lowest family in that land.
Deianeira Can she be of the ruling family? Was she a child of Eurytus?
Lichas I do not know; I did not in fact make a long investigation.
Deianeira And you do not know her name from one of her fellow captives?
Lichas No, indeed. In silence I completed my task.
Deianeira Unhappy girl, tell it to me, anyway, from your own mouth. It is indeed distressing to me not to know who you are.
Lichas It will not, I assure you, be at all on a par with time past if she moves her lips. She has not said a word, large or small, but has been constantly laboring with the heavy pains of her misfortune and weeping, poor girl, since she left her windswept fatherland. Her condition is indeed bad—for her, anyway—but claims our forbearance.
Deianeira Then let her be left in peace, and go beneath our roof as it pleases her. Let her not in addition to her existing troubles take fresh grief from me; she has enough already. Now let us all go in, so that you may go speedily on your journey, while I make all things ready in the house.
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