SEMICHOR.  My friends, what do we? does it seem good to enter the house and to free the queen from the tight-drawn noose?

SEMICHOR.  Why we?  Are not the young men-servants at hand?  The being over-busy is not a safe plan through life.

SERV.  Lay right the wretched corpse, pull her limbs straight.  A grievous housekeeping this for my master!

CHOR.  The unhappy woman, as I hear, has perished, for already are they laying her out as a corpse.

THES.  Know ye, females, what noise this is in my house? a heavy sound of my attendants reached me.  For the family does not think fit to open the gates to me and to hail me with joy as having returned from the oracle.  Has any ill befallen the aged Pittheus?  His life is now indeed far advanced; but still he would be much lamented by us, were he to leave this house.

CHOR.  This that has happened, Theseus, extends not to the old; the young are they that by their death will grieve thee.

THES.  Alas me! is the life of any of my children stolen from me?

CHOR.  They live, but their mother is dead in a way that will grieve thee most.

THES.  What sayest?  My wife dead?  By what fate?

CHOR.  She suspended the noose, wherewith she strangled herself.

THES.  Wasted with sorrow, or from some sudden calamity?

CHOR.  Thus much we know—­nothing further; for I am but just come to thy house, Theseus, to bewail thy evils.

THES.  Alas! alas! why then have I my head crowned with entwined leaves, who am the unhappy inquirer of the oracle?  Servants, undo the bars of the gates; unloose the bolts, that I may behold the mournful spectacle of my wife, who by her death hath utterly undone me.

CHOR.  Alas! alas! unhappy for thy wretched ills:  thou hast been a sufferer; thou hast perpetrated a deed of such extent as to throw this house into utter confusion.  Alas! alas! thy boldness, O thou who hast died a violent death, and, by an unhallowed chance, the act committed by thy wretched hand.  Who is it then, thou unhappy one, that destroys thy life?

THES.  Alas me for my sufferings![27] I have suffered, unhappy wretch, the extreme of my troubles—­O fortune, how heavy hast thou come upon me and my house, an imperceptible spot from some evil demon! the wearing out of a life not to be endured;[28] and I, unhappy wretch, perceive a sea of troubles so great, that never again can I emerge from it, nor escape beyond the flood of this calamity.  What mention making can I unhappy, what heavy-fated fortune of thine, lady, saying that it was, can I be right?  For as some bird thou art vanished from my hand, having leaped me a sudden leap to the realms of Pluto.  Alas! alas! wretched, wretched are these sufferings, but from some distant period or other receive I this calamity from the Gods, for the errors of some of those of old.

CHOR.  Not to thee alone, O king, have these evils happened; but with many others thou hast lost an excellent wife.[29]