Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/304

276. How so, if she was wedded to a god?

. The babe she bare she did expose.

. Where is the child who was thus cast forth? is he yet alive?

. No man knoweth. That is the very thing I would ask the oracle.

. But if he be no more, how did he perish?

. She supposes that beasts devoured the hapless babe.

. What proof led her to form this opinion?

. She came to the place where she exposed him, but found him no longer there.

. Were any drops of blood upon the path?

. None, she says; and yet she ranged the ground to and fro.

. How long is it since the babe was destroyed?

. Thy age and his would measure out the self-same span, were he alive.

. Hath she given birth to no other child since then?

. The god doth wrong her, and wretched is she in having no child.

. But what if Phœbus privily removed her child, and is rearing it?

. Then is he acting unfairly in keeping to himself alone a joy he ought to share.

. Ah me! this misfortune sounds so like my own.

. Thee too, fair sir, thy poor mother misses, I am sure.

. Oh! call me not back to piteous thoughts I had forgotten.

. I am dumb; proceed with that which touches my inquiry.

. Dost know the one weak point in this thy story?