Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/127

Rh Thronging the Nauplian haven with his fleet

Off-shore he anchors, who hath wandered long

Homeless from Troy. But Helen—"sorrow-laden"

She names herself! —safe screened by night he sent

Before, unto our house, lest some, whose sons

At Ilium fell, if she by daylight came,

Should see, and stone her. Now within she weeps

Her sister and her house's misery.

And yet hath she some solace in her griefs:

The child whom, sailing unto Troy, she left,

Hermionê, whom Menelaus brought

From Sparta to my mother's fostering,

In her she joys, and can forget her woes.

I gaze far down the highway, strain to see

Menelaus come. Frail anchor of hope is ours

To ride on, if we be not saved of him.

In desperate plight is an ill-fated house.

Enter Helen.

Klytemnestra's daughter, Agamemnon's child,

Electra, maid a weary while unwed,

Hapless, how fare ye, thou and the stricken one

Thy brother Orestes, who his mother slew?

I come, as unpolluted by thy speech,

Since upon Phœbus all thy sin I lay.

Yet do I moan for Klytemnestra's fate,

My sister, whom, since unto Ilium