Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/140

112 get rid of this relentless agony? O that the stern Death-god, night's black visitant, would give my sufferings rest!

. Poor sufferer! cruel the fate that links thee to it! Thy noble soul hath been thy ruin.

. Ah! the fragrance from my goddess wafted! Even in my agony I feel thee near and find relief; she is here in this very place, my goddess Artemis.

. She is, poor sufferer! the goddess thou hast loved the best.

. Dost see me, mistress mine? dost see my present suffering?

. I see thee, but mine eyes no tear may weep.

. Thou hast none now to lead the hunt or tend thy fane.

. None now; yet e'en in death I love thee still.

. None to groom thy steeds, or guard thy shrines.

. 'Twas Cypris, mistress of iniquity, devised this evil.

. Ah me! now know I the goddess who destroyed me.

. She was jealous of her slighted honour, vexed at thy chaste life.

. Ah! then I see her single hand hath struck down three of us.

. Thy sire and thee, and last thy father's wife.

. My sire's ill-luck as well as mine I mourn.

. He was deceived by a goddess's design.

. Woe is thee, my father, in this sad mischance!

. My son, I am a ruined man; life has no joys for me.

. For this mistake I mourn thee rather than myself.

. O that I had died for thee, my son!

. Ah! those fatal gifts thy sire Poseidon gave.

. Would God these lips had never uttered that prayer!

. Why not? thou wouldst in any case have slain me in thy fury then.