Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/340

312. Far from me had I banished these hopes. Whence, O whence, lady, didst thou take my babe into thy arms? Who carried him to the courts of Loxias?

. 'Tis a miracle! Oh! may we for the rest of our career be happy, as we were hapless heretofore.

. In tears wert thou brought forth, my child, and with sorrow to thy mother didst thou leave her arms; but now I breathe again as I press my lips to thy cheek, in full enjoyment of happiness.

. Thy words express our mutual feelings.

. No more am I of son and heir bereft; my house is stablished and my country hath a prince; Erechtheus groweth young again; no longer is the house of the earth-born race plunged in gloom, but lifts its eyes unto the radiant sun.

. Mother mine, since my father too is here, let him share the joy I have brought to thee.

. My child, my child, what sayst thou? How is my sin finding me out!

. What meanest thou?

. Thou art of a different, far different stock.

. Alas for me! Am I a bastard, then, born in thy maiden days?

. Nor nuptial torch nor dance, my child, ushered in my wedding and thy birth.

. O mother, mother! whence do I draw my base origin?

. Be witness she who slew the Gorgon,

. What meanest thou? . She that on my native rocks makes the olive-clad hill her seat.

. Thy words to me are but as cunning riddles. I cannot read them.

. Hard by the rock with nightingales melodious, Phœbus,