Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/255

Rh For these things, then, I take both shame and fear:

It cannot be but I must die with thee,

With thee be slaughtered and with thee be burned,

Seeing I am thy friend, and dread reproach.

Ah, speak not so! My burden must I bear;

Nor, when but one grief needs, will I bear twain.

For that reproach and grief which thou dost name

Is mine, if thee, the sharer of my toil,

I slay. For my lot is not evil all,—

Being thus tormented by the Gods,—to die.

But thou art prosperous: taintless are thine halls,

Unstricken; mine accurst and fortune-crost.

If thou be saved, and get thee sons of her,

My sister, whom I gave thee to thy wife,

Then should my name live, nor my father's house

Ever, for lack of heirs, be blotted out.

Pass hence, and live: dwell in my father's halls.

And when to Greece and Argos' war-steed land

Thou com'st,—by this right hand do I charge thee—

Heap me a tomb: memorials lay of me

There; tears and shorn hair let my sister give.

And tell how by an Argive woman's hand

I died, by altar death-dews consecrate.

Never forsake my sister, though thou see

Thy marriage-kin, my sire's house, desolate.

Farewell. Of friends I have found thee kindliest,

O fellow-hunter, foster-brother mine,

Bearer of many a burden of mine ills!

Me Phœbus, prophet though he be, deceived,

And by a cunning shift from Argos drave

Afar, for shame of those his prophecies.