Euripides, Helen
E. P. Coleridge, Ed.

Helen
Oh, at last you have come to the arms of your wife!

Menelaos
What do you mean by wife? Do not touch my robe.

Helen
The one whom Tyndareus, my father, gave to you.

Menelaos
O torch-bearing Hekate, send visions that are favorable!

Helen
[570] You see in me no specter of the night, attendant on the queen of phantoms.

Menelaos
As one man, I am certainly not the husband of two women.

Helen
You are the master of what other wife?

Menelaos
The one hidden in the cave, whom I am bringing from Troy.

Helen
You have no other wife but me.

Menelaos
[575] Can it be that I am in my right mind, but my sight is failing?

Helen
Don't you think that when you look at me you see your wife?

Menelaos
Your body resembles hers, but the real truth robs me of this belief.

Helen
Look; what more do you need? Who knows better than you?

Menelaos
You are like her; I will not deny that at least.

Helen
[580] Who then shall teach you, if not your own eyes?

Menelaos
It is there that I am ailing, because I have another wife.

Helen
I did not go to Troy; that was a phantom.

Menelaos
And who fashions living bodies?

Helen
The air, out of which you have a wife that the gods labored over.

Menelaos
[585] What god's handiwork? You are saying things beyond hope.

Helen
Hera's, as a substitute, so that Paris would not have me.

Menelaos
How then could you be here and in Troy at the same time?

Helen
The name may be in many places, though not the body.

Menelaos
Let me go! I have come here with enough pain.

Helen
[590] Will you leave me, and take that phantom bride away?

Menelaos
Yes, and fare well, for your likeness to Helen.

Helen
I am ruined! I found you, my husband, but I will not have you.

Menelaos
The greatness of my troubles over there convinces me; you do not.

Helen
Ah me! Who was ever more miserable than I am? [595] Those whom I love best are leaving me, and I shall never reach the Hellenes or my own country.