Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/387
Enter Theoklymenus and Menelaus, with train of attendants bearing funeral offerings.
Theoklymenus.
Pass on in order, as the stranger bade, 1390
Thralls, bearing offerings destined to the sea.
Helen, thou—if thou take not ill my words—
Be ruled by me, here stay: for thou shalt serve
Thy lord alike, or be thou there or not.
I fear thee, lest some thrill of yearning pain 1395
Move thee to fling thy body mid the surge,
Distraught with love for him who was thy lord;
For overmuch thou mournest him, who is not.
Helen.
O my new spouse, needs must I honour him,
My first love, who embraced me as a bride: 1400
Yea, I for very love of that my lord
Could die,—yet wherein should I pleasure him
If with the dead I died? Nay, suffer me
Myself to go and pay him burial-dues:
So the Gods grant thee all the boons I wish, 1405
And to this stranger, for his help herein.
And such wife shalt thou find me in thine halls
As meet is, for thy kindness to my lord
And me; for these things to fair issue tend.
Now bid one give a ship wherein to bear 1410
The gifts, that so thy kindness may be full.
Theoklymenus (to attendant).
Go thou, and give these a Sidonian ship
Of fifty oars, and rowers therewithal.