Page:The tragedies of Euripides Vol I Buckley.pdf/24

172-219 child, daughter of the most aﬁlicted mother, come forth, come forth from the tent, hear thy mother’s voice, that thou mayest know what a report I hear that concerns thy life.

. O mother, why dost thou call! proclaiming what new aﬂiiction hast thou frighted me from the tent, as some bird from its nest, with this alarm?

. Alas! my child!

. Why address me in words of ill omen? This is an evil prelude.

. Alas! for thy life.

. Speak, conceal it not longer from me. I fear, I fear, my mother; why I pray dost thou groan?

. O child, child of an unhappy mother!

. Why sayest thou this ?

. My child, the common decree of the Greeks unites to slay thee at the tomb of the son of Peleus.

. Alas, my mother! how are you relating unenviable ills? Tell me, tell me, my mother.

. I declare, my child, the ill-omened report, they bring word that a decree has passed by the vote of the Greeks regarding thy life.

. O thou that hast borne aﬂliction! O thou wretched on every side! O mother unhappy in your life, what most hated and most unutterable calamity has some destiny again sent against thee! This child is no longer thine; no longer indeed shall I miserable share slavery with miserable age. For as a mountain whelp or heifer shalt thou wretched behold me wretched torn from thine arms, and sent down beneath the darkness of the earth a victim to Pluto, where I shall lie bound in misery with the dead. But it is for thee indeed, my aﬂiicted mother, that I lament in these mournful strains, but for my life, my wrongs, my fate, I mourn not; but death, a better lot, has befallen me.

. But see Ulysses advances with hasty step, to declare to thee, Hecuba, some new determination.

. Lady, I imagine that you are acquainted with the decree of the army, and the vote which has prevailed;