Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/172

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Alas! we are undone: thy speech is plain.

Thou com'st, meseems, a messenger of ill.

Pelasgia's vote this day hath doomed that thou,

O hapless, and thy brother, are to die.

Woe! that I looked for cometh, which long since

I feared, and pined with wailings for my fate!

How went the trial? Before Argos' folk

What pleadings ruined us, and doomed to die?

Tell, ancient, must I under stoning hands,

Or by the steel, gasp out my dying breath,

I, who am sharer in my brother's woes?

It chanced that I was entering the gates

Out of the country, fain to learn thy state,

And of Orestes; for unto thy sire

Aye was I loyal: thine house fostered me,

A poor man, yet true-hearted to his friends.

Then throngs I saw to seats on yon height climb

Where first, as men say, Danaus, by Aegyptus

Impeached, in general session gathered us.

Marking the crowd, I asked a citizen:

"What news in Argos? Hath a bruit of foes

Startled the city of the Danaïds?"

But he, "Dost thou not mark Orestes there

Draw near to run the race whose goal is death?"

Would I had ne'er seen that unlooked-for sight—