CHOR.  I swear by hallowed Dian, daughter of Jove, that I will never reveal to the face of day one of thy evils.

PHAE.  Thou hast well spoken:  but one kind of resource, while I search around me,[21] do I find for my present calamity, so that I may make the life of my children glorious, and may myself be assisted as things have now fallen out.  For never will I disgrace the house of Crete at least, nor will I come before the face of Theseus having acted basely, for one’s life’s sake.

CHOR.  But what irremediable evil art thou then about to perpetrate?

PHAE.  To die:  but how, this will I devise.

CHOR.  Speak words of better omen.

PHAE.  And do thou at least advise me well.  But having quitted life this day, I shall gratify Venus, who destroys me, and shall be conquered by bitter love.  But when I am dead, I shall be an evil to another at least,[22] so that he may know not to exult over my misfortunes; but, having shared this malady in common with me, he shall learn to be modest.

CHOR.  Would that I were under the rocks’ vast retreats,[23] and that there the God would make me a winged bird among the swift flocks, and that I were lifted up above the ocean wave that dashes against the Adriatic shore, and the water of Eridanus, where for grief of Phaethon the thrice wretched virgins let fall into their father’s billow the amber-beaming brightness of their tears:  and that I could make my way to the shore where the apples grow of the harmonious daughters of Hesperus, where the ruler of the ocean no longer permits the passage of the purple sea to mariners, dwelling in that dread bourn of heaven which Atlas doth sustain, and the ambrosial founts stream forth hard by the couches of Jove’s palaces, where the divine and life-bestowing earth increases the bliss of the Gods.  O white-winged bark of Crete, who didst bear my queen through the perturbed[24] ocean wave of brine from a happy home, thereby aiding her in a most evil marriage.  For surely in both instances, or at any rate from Crete she came ill-omened to renowned Athens, when on the Munychian shore they bound the platted ends of their cables, and disembarked on the continent.  Wherefore she was heartbroken with the terrible disease of unhallowed love by the influence of Venus; and now that she can no longer hold out against the heavy calamity,[25] she will fit around her the noose suspended[26] from the ceiling of her bridal chamber, adjusting it to her white neck, having revered the hateful Goddess, and embracing an honorable name, and ridding from her breast the painful love.

FEMALE SERVANT, CHORUS, THESEUS.

SERV.  Alack! alack! run to my succor all that are near the house—­My mistress the wife of Theseus is hanging.

CHOR.  Alas! alas! the deed is done:  the queen is indeed no more—­she is suspended in the noose that hangs there.

SERV.  Will ye not haste? will not some one bring a two-edged sword, with which we may undo this knot around her neck?