Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/178

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122
EURIPIDES.

This ruin is not thy Troy, nor the lords are we now of Troy, and the fate-winds blow 100
Not as of old; thou must bear it, must drift with the stream, as the tides of Fortune flow.
Breast not with thy prow the surges of life, who on waves of disaster, alas! art tost.
What remaineth to me but the misery-moan, whose country, whose children, whose husband, are lost?
O proud-swelling sail of a kingly line reefed now!—how a thing but of nought thou wast!
(Ant. 1)
What shall I speak?—what leave unsaid?—woe's me for the couch of the evil-starred! 110
Lo, how I lie unrestfully stretched on the bed of calamity pitiless hard!
Alas for mine head, for my throbbing brows, for mine heart in its aching prison barred!
I yearn to rock me and sway—as a bark whose bulwarks roll in the trough of the sea—
To my keening, the while I wail my chant of sorrow and weeping unceasingly,
The ruin-song never linked with the dance, the jangled music of misery. 120

Rises to her feet and advances to front of stage.

(Str. 2)
O ship-prows rushing
To Ilium, brushing
The purple-flushing sea with swift oars,
Till flutes loud-ringing,
Till pipes dread-singing
Proclaimed you swinging off Phrygian shores
On hawsers plaited
By Nile[1]—ships fated

  1. ↑ Reading παίδευμα (Tyrrell).
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