Euripides, Helen
E. P. Coleridge, Ed.

Helen
Menelaos, as far as the maiden is concerned, we are safe. For the rest, you must contribute your advice and frame a device to save ourselves.

Menelaos
[1035] Then listen; you have been in the house for a long time and are intimate with the king's servants.

Helen
What do you mean by that? You are offering hope, as if you were really about to do something useful for both of us.

Menelaos
Could you persuade someone in charge of the wagons [1040] and horses to give us a chariot?

Helen
I might; but how will we escape, in our ignorance of the country and the barbarian land?

Menelaos
You are right; it is impossible. Well, what if I were to hide in the house and kill the king with this two-edged sword?

Helen
[1045] His sister would never be silent or allow you to intend her own brother's death.

Menelaos
Nor indeed is there a ship in which we might safely escape; for the sea holds the one we had.

Helen
Listen to me, if even a woman can say something wise. [1050] Are you willing to be called dead in word, though you are not dead?

Menelaos
It is a bad omen; but if I profit by it, I am ready to be called dead in word, though I am not dead.

Helen
And truly I would mourn you, as women do, with hair cut short and laments before this impious man.

Menelaos
[1055] What saving remedy does this have for us two? This plan is a little out of date.

Helen
I will beg the tyrant of this country for permission to bury you in an empty tomb, as if you had really died at sea.

Menelaos
Soppose he allows it; then how shall we escape with no ship, [1060] when we have buried my body in the empty tomb?

Helen
I will urge him to give me a vessel, from which I shall have the offerings from your tomb let down into the sea's embrace.

Menelaos
You have spoken well, except for one thing: if he commands you to set up a tomb on the dry land, your pretext comes to nothing.

Helen
[1065] But I will say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who have died at sea on the dry land.