Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/208
Why slay this child who is guiltless wholly of wrong? 760
Tyndareus' daughter—no Zeus' daughter thou!
Nay, but of many sires I name thee born:
Child of the Haunting Curse, of Envy child,
Of Murder, Death, of all earth-nurtured plagues!
Thee never Zeus begat, I dare avouch, 765
A curse to many a Greek, barbarians many!
Now ruin seize thee, who by thy bright eyes
Foully hast wasted Phrygia's glorious plains!
Take him—bear hence, and hurl, if hurl ye will;—
Then on his flesh feast! For we perish now 770
By the Gods' doom, and cannot shield one child
From death. O hide this wretched body of mine,
Yea, cast into a ship. To a bridal fair
Have I attained—I, who have lost my son!
Chorus.
O hapless Troy, who hast lost unnumbered sons 775
All for one woman's sake, for one loathed couch!
Talthybius.
Come, child, from thy woeful mother's clasp
Break away: to the height of the coronal fare
Of thy towers ancestral, for thy last gasp,
As the doom hath decreed, must be rendered there. 780
Lay hold on him:—his should such heralding be
Who is made without pity, whose breast doth bear
A spirit more ruthless, that hateth to spare,
More than the spirit that dwelleth in me!
[Exeunt Andromachê, and Talthybius with Astyanax.