Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/61

Rh Forlorn of thee to pine in woeful eld.

In all her sisters' eyes she hath crowned her life

With glory, daring such a deed as this.

O saviour of my son, who us upraisedst

In act to fall, all hail! May bliss be thine

Even in Hades. Thus to wed, I say,

Profiteth men—or nothing worth is marriage.

Bidden of me thou com'st not to this burial,

Nor count I thine the presence of a friend.

Thine ornaments she never shall put on;

She shall be buried needing nought of thine.

Thou grieve!—thou shouldst have grieved in my death-hour!

Thou stood'st aloof—the old, didst leave the young

To die:—and wilt thou wail upon this corpse?

True father of my body thou wast not;

Nor she that said she bare me, and was called

My mother, gave me birth: of bondman blood

To thy wife's breast was I brought privily.

Put to the test, thou showedst who thou art,

And I account me not thy true-born son.

Peerless of men in soulless cowardice!

So old, and standing on the verge of life,

Yet hadst no will, yet hadst no heart to die

For thine own son!—Ye suffered her, a woman

Not of our house, whom I with righteous cause

Might count alone my mother and my father.

Yet here was honour, hadst thou dared the strife,

In dying for thy son. A paltry space

To cling to life in any wise was left.

Then had I lived, and she, through days to come,