The springs of sorrow are unbound, II 2
          And such an agony disclose,
          As never from the hands of foes
    To afflict the life of Heracles was found. 
    O dark with battle-stains, world-champion spear,
      That from Oechalia’s highland leddest then
      This bride that followed swiftly in thy train,
    How fatally overshadowing was thy fear! 
    But these wild sorrows all too clearly come
    From Love’s dread minister[4], disguised and dumb.

CH. 1. 
    Am I a fool, or do I truly hear
    Lament new-rising from our master’s home? 
    Tell!

CH. 2. 
    Clearly from within a wailing voice
    Peals piteously.  The house hath some fresh woe.

CH. 3. 
    Mark! 
    How strangely, with what cloud upon her brow,
    Yon aged matron with her tidings moves!

Enter Nurse.

NURSE.  Ah! mighty, O my daughters! was the grief
Sprung from the gift to Heracles conveyed!

LEADER OF CH.  What new thing is befallen?  Why speak’st thou so?

NUR.  Our Queen hath found her latest journey’s end. 
Even now she is gone, without the help of feet.

CH.  Not dead?

NUR.  You know the whole.

CH.  Dead! hapless Queen!

NUR.  The truth hath twice been told.

CH.  O tell us how! 
What was her death, poor victim of dire woe?

NUR.  Most ruthless was the deed.

CH.  Say, woman, say! 
What was the sudden end?

NUR.  Herself she slew.

CH.  What rage, what madness, clutched
The mischief-working brand? 
How could her single thought
Contrive the accomplishment of death on death?

NUR.  Chill iron stopped the sources of her breath.

CH.  And thou, poor helpless crone, didst see this done?

NUR.  Yea, I stood near and saw.

CH.  How was it?  Tell!

NUR.  With her own hand this violence was given.

CH.  What do I hear?

NUR.  The certainty of truth.

CH.  A child is come,
From this new bridal that hath rushed within,
A fresh-born Fury of woe!

NUR.  Too true.  But hadst thou been at hand to see
Her action, pity would have wrung thy soul.

CH.  Could this be ventured by a woman’s hand?

NUR.  Ay, and in dreadful wise, as thou shalt hear. 
When all alone she had gone within the gate,
And passing through the court beheld her boy
Spreading the couch that should receive his sire,
Ere he returned to meet him,—­out of sight
She hid herself, and fell at the altar’s foot,
And loudly cried that she was left forlorn;
And, taking in her touch each household thing