Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/105

Rh Whose lords for no wreaths ran their terrible courses,

Where the princes of Ilium to Hades descended,

Where upstreameth no more with the altar-flames blended

The odour of incense to dream through the sky

Round the feet of Immortals—from her that was Troy!

And Atreides hath passed; for on him lighted slaughter

At the hands of a wife: and with murder she bought her

Death, at the hands of her child to receive it:

For a God's, O a God's hest levin-wise glared

Bodings of death on her, doomings declared

In the hour Agamemnon's son forth fared

To his temple from Argos; then thundered it o'er him;

And he slew her, he murdered the mother that bore him!

God, Phœbus!—ah must I, ah must I believe it?

And wherever the Hellenes were gathered was mourning

Of wives for their lost ones, the sons unreturning,

And of brides from their bowers of espousal departing

To another lord's couch:—O, not only on thee

Down swooping fell anguish of misery,

Nor alone on thy loved ones; but Hellas must be

Bowed 'neath the plague, 'neath the plague; and on-sweeping

Like a cloud whence the death-rain of Hades was dripping,

Passed the scourge, o'er the Phrygians' fair harvest-fields darting.

Enter Peleus, attended.

Women of Phthia, unto that I ask