Euripides, Andromache 590–601: condemning the practices of female athletics in Sparta

Euripides, Andromache 590–601: condemning the practices of female athletics in Sparta

485-406 BCE

Tragedy

Literary source

Peleus:
Thou, thou a man?—Coward, of cowards bred!
What part or lot hast thou amongst true men?
Thou, by a Phrygian from thy wife divorced,
Who leftest hearth and home unbarred, unwarded,
As who kept in his halls a virtuous wife,—
And she the vilest! Though one should essay,
Virtuous could daughter of Sparta never be.
They gad abroad with young men from their homes,
And with bare thighs and loose disgirdled vesture
Race, wrestle with them,—things intolerable
To me! And is it wonder-worthy then
That ye train not your women to be chaste?

Arthur S. Way, The Tragedies of Euripides in English verse, vol. 2, London 1896.

Πηλεύς
σὺ γὰρ μετ᾽ ἀνδρῶν, ὦ κάκιστε κἀκ κακῶν;
σοὶ ποῦ μέτεστιν ὡς ἐν ἀνδράσιν λόγου;
ὅστις πρὸς ἀνδρὸς Φρυγὸς ἀπηλλάγης λέχος,
ἄκλῃστ᾽ ἄφρουρα δώμαθ᾽ ἑστίας λιπών,
ὡς δὴ γυναῖκα σώφρον᾽ ἐν δόμοις ἔχων
πασῶν κακίστην. οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἰ βούλοιτό τις
σώφρων γένοιτο Σπαρτιατίδων κόρη,
αἳ ξὺν νέοισιν ἐξερημοῦσαι δόμους
γυμνοῖσι μηροῖς καὶ πέπλοις ἀνειμένοις
δρόμους παλαίστρας τ᾽ οὐκ ἀνασχετοὺς ἐμοὶ
κοινὰς ἔχουσι. κᾆτα θαυμάζειν χρεὼν
εἰ μὴ γυναῖκας σώφρονας παιδεύετε;

Arthur S. Way (ed.), Euripides, vol. 2, Electra. Orestes. Iphigeneia in Taurica. Andromache. Cyclops (= Loeb Classical Library; 10), Cambridge, MA 1912.