Stasimon 2
[Choral]
Woe and tribulation
Chorus
were made my lot in life, when Alexander first cut his beams of pine in Ida’s woods, to sail across the heaving sea
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in quest of Helen’s bed, loveliest woman on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.
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For here begins trouble’s cycle,
and, worse than that, relentless fate; and from one man’s folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. The strife the shepherd decided
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on Ida, between three daughters of the blessed gods,
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brought as its result war and bloodshed and the ruin of my home;
and many a Spartan maiden too is weeping bitter tears in her halls on the banks of fair Eurotas, and many a mother whose sons are slain,
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is smiting her gray head and tearing her cheeks, making her nails bloody in the furrowed gash.
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