Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/180

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Ah, thou wilt melt me! Fain would I reply

With arms of love! Wretch, wherefore shame I now?

Ah, sister-bosom, dear embrace to me!

In children's stead, instead of wedded arms,

This farewell to the hapless is vouchsafed.

Oh might the selfsame sword, if this may be,

Slay us, one coffin cedar-wrought receive!

Most sweet were this: yet, how forlorn of friends

Thou seest are we, who cannot claim one tomb!

Spake Menelaus not for thee, to plead

Against thy death—base traitor to my sire?

His face he showed not—fixed upon the throne

His hope, with good heed not to save his friends!

Come, prove we by our deeds our high-born strain,

And worthily of Agamemnon die.

And I will show all men my royal blood,

Plunging the sword into mine heart: but thou

Must match with thine the unflinching deed I do.

Sit thou as umpire, Pylades, to our death.

Meetly lay out the bodies of the dead:

Bear to our sire's grave, and with him entomb.

Farewell: I go, thou seest, to do the deed.