If I haply may find for thee 120
Some healing or help for the tangle of desperate trouble
Whose meshes of bitterest feud around thee and Hermionê twine,
For that, O thou afflicted one,
Ye twain are unequally yoked in the bride-bands double
That compass Achilles' son. 125
(Ant. 1)
Look on thy lot, take account of the ills whereinto thou art come.
Thy lady's rival art thou,—
An llian to rival a child of a lordly Laconian home!
Forsake thou the temple now
Wherein sheep to the Sea-queen are burned. What boots it with wailing 130
And tears to consume thy beauty, aghast at oppression's doom
Upon thee by thy lords' hands brought?
The might of the strong overbeareth thee: all unavailing
Is thy struggling—lo, thou art naught.
(Str. 2)
Nay, leave thou the holy place of the Lady of Nereus' race: 135
Discern how thou needs must abide
In a land of strangers, an alien city
Where thou seest no friend, neither any to pity,
O thou who art whelmed in calamity's tide,
Unhappiest bride! 140
(Ant. 2)
Sore grieved I, O Ilian dame, when thy feet unto these halls came;
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EURIPIDES.
