Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/242

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Are my lord and my sons! Whither now shall I wend me?

Whither flee?—Is there God—is there fiend shall befriend me?

Alone—alone!

Daughters of Troy—O ye heralds of ruin, ye heralds of ruin!—

What profits my life any more, whom your words have undone, have undone?

Now unto yonder pavilion, to tell to my child her undoing,

Lead, O ye wretchedest feet, lead ye the eld-stricken one!

O daughter, O child of a mother most wretched, forth faring, forth faring,

Come from the tent, O hearken the voice of thy mother's word,

To the end thou mayst know what a rumour of awful despairing, despairing,

Concerning the life of thee, my beloved, but now have I heard!

Enter Polyxena.

O mother, my mother, what meaneth thy crying?

What strange dread thing

Is this that thou heraldest

That hath scared me, like to a bird forth-flying

On startled wing

Out of the peace of her nest?

Alas! woe's me, my daughter!