Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/370

Here stay: if he would do thee any hurt, 1085
This tomb and thine own sword shall keep thee safe.
But I will pass within, will shear mine hair,
And sable vesture for white robes will don,
And with the blood-stained nail will scar my cheek.
'Tis a grim strife, and issues twain I see: 1090
Or I must die, if plotting I am found,
Or see the home-land and redeem thy life.
O Queen, who restest on the couch of Zeus,
Hera, to hapless twain grant pause from ills,
We pray, with arms flung upward to the sky, 1095
Thy mansion wrought with arabesques of stars.
And thou, by mine hand winner of beauty's prize,
Kypris, Dionê's child, destroy me not!
Enough the scathe thou hast done me heretofore,
Lending my name, not me, to alien men: 1100
But let me die, if 'tis thy will to slay,
In home-land. Why insatiate of wrong
Dost thou use loves, deceits, and guile's inventions,
And love-spells dark with blood of families?
Wouldst thou in measure come, thou wert to men 1105
Else kindest of the Gods: I hold this truth.

(Str. 1)
O thou in thine halls of song abiding,
Under the greenwood leaves deep-hiding,
I hail thee, I hail,
Nightingale, queen by thy notes woe-thrilling 1110
Of song-birds, come, through thy brown throat trilling
Notes tuned to my wail,
As of Helen's grief and pain
And of Ilium's daughters' tears