What wrongs I bear! Why must I be a mother, 395
And add a double burden to my load?
Why wail the past, and o'er the present woes
Shed not a tear, nor take account thereof?
I saw dead Hector trailed behind the car,
Saw Ilium piteously enwrapped in flame. 400
I passed aboard the Argive ships, a slave
Haled by mine hair, and when to Phthia-land
I came, to Hector's murderers was I wed.
What joy hath life for me?—what thing to look to?
Unto my present fortune, or the past? 405
This one child had I left, light of my life:
Him will these slay who count this righteousness.
No, never!—if my wretched life can save!
For him, for him, hope lives, if he be saved;
And mine were shame to die not for my child. 410
Lo, I forsake the altar—yours I am
To hack, bind, murder, strangle with the cord! [Rises.
O child, thy mother, that thou may'st not die,
Passeth to Hades. If thou 'scape the doom,
Think on thy mother—how I suffered—died! 415
And to thy sire with kisses and with tears
Streaming, and little arms about his neck,
Tell how I fared! To all mankind, I wot,
Children are life. Who scoffs at joys unproved,
Though less his grief, a void is in his bliss. 420
Chorus.
Pitying I hear: for pitiful is woe
To all men, alien though the afflicted be.
Thou shouldest, Menelaus, reconcile
Her and thy child, that she may rest from pain.
