soon cut short, — the hopes of vengeance so ruinously frustrated. How can he return to Salamis, and meet the questioning looks of his father Telamon, deprived of the meeds of valour? He is hated by the gods; he is hated by the Greek host; "yea," he says, "all Troy and these plains hate me."
"I must seek out some perilous emprise,
To show my father that I sprang from him,
In nature not faint-hearted. It is shame
For any man to wish for length of life,
Who, wrapped in troubles, knows no change for good.
For what delight brings day still following day,
Or bringing on, or putting off our death?
I would not rate that man as worth regard,
Whose fervour glows on vain and empty hopes;
But either noble life or noble death
Becomes the gentle born. My say is said."—(P.)
Then Tecmessa implores him, in the name of all that he regards as dearest and most sacred upon earth, not to leave her and his child desolate, to eat the bread of slavery and bear the bitter insults of his enemies.
"For very shame,
Leave not thy father in his sad old age;
For shame, leave not thy mother, feeble grown
With many years, who ofttimes prays the gods
That thou may'st live, and to thy house return.
Pity, O king, thy boy, and think if he,
Deprived of childhood's nurture, live bereaved
Beneath unfriendly guardians, what sore grief
Thou in thy death dost give to him and me;
For I have nothing now on earth save thee
To which to look."—(P.)
