Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/202

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That it is better for thee not to know.

Oh hide not from me what I have to suffer!

Poor child! Poor child! I do not grudge the gift.

Why, then, art thou so slow to tell me all?

It is not from unkindness; but I fear

'Twill break thy heart.

Take thou no thought for me

Where thinking thwarteth heart's desire!

So keen

To know thy sorrows! List! and thou shalt learn.

Not till thou hast indulged a wish of mine.

First let us hear the story of her grief

And she herself shall tell the woeful tale.

After, thy wisdom shall impart to her

The conflict yet to come.

So be it, then.

And, Io, thus much courtesy thou owest

These maidens, being thine own father's kin.

For with a moving story of our woes

To win a tear from weeping auditors

In nought demeans the teller.