Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/78

22 What wrongs I bear! Why must I be a mother,

And add a double burden to my load?

Why wail the past, and o'er the present woes

Shed not a tear, nor take account thereof?

I saw dead Hector trailed behind the car,

Saw Ilium piteously enwrapped in flame.

I passed aboard the Argive ships, a slave

Haled by mine hair, and when to Phthia-land

I came, to Hector's murderers was I wed.

What joy hath life for me?—what thing to look to?

Unto my present fortune, or the past?

This one child had I left, light of my life:

Him will these slay who count this righteousness.

No, never!—if my wretched life can save!

For him, for him, hope lives, if he be saved;

And mine were shame to die not for my child.

Lo, I forsake the altar—yours I am

To hack, bind, murder, strangle with the cord!

O child, thy mother, that thou may'st not die,

Passeth to Hades. If thou 'scape the doom,

Think on thy mother—how I suffered—died!

And to thy sire with kisses and with tears

Streaming, and little arms about his neck,

Tell how I fared! To all mankind, I wot,

Children are life. Who scoffs at joys unproved,

Though less his grief, a void is in his bliss.

Pitying I hear: for pitiful is woe

To all men, alien though the afflicted be.

Thou shouldest, Menelaus, reconcile

Her and thy child, that she may rest from pain.

[Andromachê leaves the altar.