Epeisodion 3
Messenger
Help!Messenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. ho! To the rescue all who near the palace stand! She hath hung herself, our queen, the wife of Theseus.
Chorus
Woe worth the day! the deed is done; our royal mistress is no more, dead she hangs in the dangling noose.
Messenger
Haste!Messenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. some one bring a two-edged knife wherewith to cut the knot about her neck!
780
1st Half Chorus
Friends, what shall we do? think you we should enter the house, and loose the queen from the tight-drawn noose?
2nd Half Chorus
Why should we? Are there not young servants here?
To do too much is not a safe course in life.
785
Messenger
LayMessenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. out the hapless corpse, straighten the limbs. This was a bitter way to sit at home and keep my master’s house! [Exit Messenger.
Chorus
She is dead, poor lady, so I hear. Already are they laying out the corpse.
Theseus
Ladies, can ye tell me what the uproar in the palace means? There came the sound of servants weeping bitterly to mine ear. None of my household deign to open wide the gates and give me glad welcome as a traveller from prophetic shrines.
790
Hath aught befallen old Pittheus?
No. Though he be well advanced in years, yet should I mourn, were he to quit this house.
795
Chorus
’Tis not against the old, Theseus, that fate, to strike thee, aims this blow; prepare thy sorrow for a younger corpse.
Theseus
Woe is me! is it a child’s life death robs me of?
Chorus
They live; but, cruellest news of all for thee, their mother is no more.
800
Theseus
What! my wife dead? By what cruel mischance?
Chorus
About her neck she tied the hangman’s knot.
Theseus
Had grief so chilled her blood? or what had befallen her?
Chorus
I know but this, for I am myself but now arrived at the house
to mourn thy sorrows, O Theseus.
805
Theseus
Woe is me! why have I crowned my head with woven garlands, when misfortune greets my embassage? Unbolt the doors, servants,
loose their fastenings, that I may see the piteous sight,
825
my wife, whose death is death to me. [The palace opens, disclosing the corpse.
810