We have not so much as a ship to make our escape in; for the sea. hath swallowed the one we had.

Hear me, if haply even a woriian can utter words of wisdom. Dost thou consent to be dead in word, though not really so?

‘Tis a bad omen; still, if by saying so I shall gain aught, I am ready to be dead in word, though not in deed.

I, too, will mourn thee with hair cut short and dirges, as is women’s way, before this impious wretch.

What saving remedy doth this afford us twain? There is deception in thy scheme.

I will beg the king of this country leave to bury thee in a cenotaph, as if thou hadst really died at sea.

Suppose he grant it; how, e’en then, are we to escape without a ship, after having committed me to my empty tomb?

I will bid him give me a vessel, from which to let drop into the sea’s embrace thy funeral offerings.

A clever plan in truth, save in one particular; suppose he bid thee rear the tomb upon the strand, thy pretext comes to naught.

But I shall say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who die at sea upon the shore.

Thou removest this obstacle too; I then will sail with thee and help stow the funeral garniture in the same ship.

Above all, it is necessary that thou and all thy sailors who escaped from the wreck should be at hand.

Be sure if once I find a ship at her moorings, they shall be there man for man, each with his sword.

Thou must direct everything; only let there be winds to waft our rails and a good ship to speed before them!

So shall it be; for the deities will cause my troubles to cease. But from whom wilt thou say thou hadst tidings of my death?

From thee; declare thyself the one and only survivor, telling how thou wert sailing with the son of Atreus, and didst see him perish.

Of a truth the garments I have thrown about me, will bear out my tale that they were rags collected from the wreckage.

They come in most opportunely, but they were near being lost just at the wrong time. Maybe that misfortune will turn to fortune.

Am I to enter the palace with thee, or are we to sit here at the tomb quietly?

Abide here; for if the king attempts to do thee any mischief, this tomb and thy good sword will protect thee. But I will go within and cut off my hair, and exchange my white robe for sable weeds, and rend my cheek with this hand’s blood-thirsty nail. For ’tis a mighty struggle, and I see two possible issues; either I must die if detected in my plot, or else to my country shall I come and save thy soul alive. O Hera! awfulqueen, who sharest the couch of Zeus, grant some respite from their toil to two unhappy wretches; to thee I pray, tossing my arms upward to heaven, where thou hast thy home in the star-spangled firmament. Thou, too, that didst win the prize of beauty at the price of my marriage; O Cypris! daughter of Dione, destroy me not utterly. Thou hast injured me enough aforetime, delivering up my name, though not my person, to live amongst barbarians. Oh! suffer me to die, if death is thy desire, in my native land. Why art thou so insatiate in mischief, employing every art of love, of fraud, and guileful schemes, and spells that bring bloodshed on families? Wert thou but moderate, only that!-in all else thou art by nature man’s most well, come deity; and I have reason so to say.

HELEN enters the palace and MENELAUS withdraws into the background.
CHORUS singing

strophe 1

Thee let me invoke, tearful Philomel, lurking ‘neath the leafy covert in thy place of song, most tuneful of all feathered songsters, oh! come toaid me in my dirge, trilling through thy tawny throat, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen, and the tearful fate of Trojan dames made subject to Achaea’s spear, on the day that there came to their plains one who sped with foreign oar across the dashing billows, bringing to Priam’s race from Lacedaemon thee his hapless bride, Helen,-even Paris, luckless bridegroom, by the guidance of Aphrodite.

antistrophe 1

And many an Achaean hath breathed his last amid the spearmen’s thrusts
and hurtling hail of stones, and gone to his sad end; for these their
wives cut off their hair in sorrow, and their houses are left without
a bride; and one of the Achaeans, that had but a single ship, did
light a blazing beacon on sea-girt Euboea, and destroy full many of
them, wrecking them on the rocks of Caphareus and the shores that
front the Aegean main, by the treacherous gleam he kindled; when thou,
O Menelaus, from the very day of thy start, didst drift to harbourless
hills, far from thy country before the breath of the storm, bearing
on thy ship a prize that was no prize, but a phantom made by Hera
out of cloud for the Danai to struggle over.

(strophe 2)

What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found
out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes
between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by
waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes? Thou, Helen, art
the daughter of Zeus; for thy sire was the bird that nestled in Leda’s
bosom; and yet for all that art thou become a by-word for wickedness,
through the length and breadth of Hellas, as faithless, treacherous
wife and godless woman; nor can I tell what certainty is, whatever
may pass for it amongst men. That which gods pronounce have I found
true.

(antistrophe 2)

O fools! all ye who try to win the meed of valour through war and
serried ranks of chivalry, seeking thus to still this mortal coil,
in senselessness; for if bloody contests are to decide, there will
never be any lack of strife in the towns of men; the maidens of the
land of Priam left their bridal bowers, though arbitration might have
put thy quarrel right, O Helen. And now Troy’s sons are in Hades’
keeping in the world below, and fire hath darted on her walls, as
darts the flame of Zeus, and thou art bringing woe on woe to hapless
sufferers in their misery.

(THEOCLYMENUS and his hunting attendants
enter.)

All hail, my father’s tomb! I buried thee, Proteus,
at the place where men go out, that I might often greet thee; and
so, ever as I go out and in, I, thy son Theoclymenus call on thee,
father. Ho! servants, to the palace take my hounds and hunting nets!
How often have I blamed myself for never punishing those miscreants
with death! I have just heard that son of Hellas has come openly to
my land, escaping the notice of the guard, a spy maybe or a would-be
thief of Helen; death shall be his lot if only I can catch him. Ha!
I find all my plans apparently frustrated, the daughter of Tyndareus
has deserted her seat at the tomb and sailed away from my shores.
Ho! there, undo the bars, loose the horses from their stalls, bring
forth my chariot, servants, that the wife, on whom my heart is set,
may not get away from these shores unseen, for want of any trouble
I can take. Yet stay; for I see the object of my pursuit is still
in the palace, and has not fled. (HELEN enters from the palace, clad
in the garb of mourning.) How now, lady, why hast thou arrayed thee
in sable weeds instead of white raiment, and from thy fair head hast
shorn thy tresses with the steel, bedewing thy cheeks the while with
tears but lately shed? Is it in response to visions of the night that
thou art mourning, or, because thou hast heard some warning voice
within, art thus distraught with grief?

My lord,-for already I have learnt to say that name,–I am
undone; my luck is gone; I cease to be.

In what misfortune art thou plunged? What hath happened?

Menelaus, ah me! how can I say it? is dead, my husband.

How knowest thou? Did Theonoe tell thee this?

Both she, and one who was there when he perished.

What! hath one arrived who actually announces this for
certaint?

One hath; oh may he come e’en as I wish him to!

Who and where is he? that I may learn this more surely.

There he is, sitting crouched beneath the shelter of this tomb,

Great Apollo! how clad in unseemly rags!

Ah me! methinks my own husband too is in like plight.

From what country is this fellow? whence landed he here?

From Hellas, one of the Achaeans who sailed with my husband.

What kind of death doth he declare that Menelaus died?

The most piteous of all; amid the watery waves at sea.

On what part of the savage ocean was he sailing?

Cast up on the harbourless rocks of Libya.

How was it this man did not perish if he was with him
aboard?

There are times when churls have more luck than their betters.

Where left he the wreck, on coming hither?

There, where perdition catch it, but not Menelaus!

He is lost; but on what vessel came this man?

According to his story sailors fell in with him and picked
him up.

Where then is that ill thing that was sent to Troy in
thy stead?

Dost mean the phantom-form of cloud? It hath passed into the
air.

O Priam, and thou land of Troy, how fruitless thy ruin!

I too have shared with Priam’s race their misfortunes.

Did this fellow leave thy husband unburied, or consign
him to the grave?

Unburied; woe is me for my sad lot!

Wherefore hast thou shorn the tresses of thy golden
hair?

His memory lingers fondly in this heart, whate’er his fate.

Are thy tears in genuine sorrow for this calamity?

An easy task no doubt to escape thy sister’s detection!

No, surely; impossible. Wilt thou still make this tomb
thy abode?

Why jeer at me? canst thou not let the dead man be?

No, thy loyalty to thy husband’s memory makes thee fly
from me.

I will do so no more; prepare at once for my marriage.

Thou hast been long in bringing thyself to it; still
I do commend the now.

Dost know thy part? Let us forget the past.

On what terms? One good turn deserves another.

Let us make peace; be reconciled to me.

I relinquish my quarrel with thee; let it take wings
and fly away.

Then by thy knees, since thou art my friend indeed,-

What art so bent on winning, that to me thou stretchest
out a suppliant hand?

My dead husband would I fain bury.

What tomb can be bestowed on lost bodies? Wilt thou
bury a shade?

In Hellas we have a custom, whene’er one is drowned at sea-

What is your custom? The race of Pelops truly hath some
skill in matters such as this.

To hold a burial with woven robes that wrap no corpse.

Perform the ceremony; rear the tomb where’er thou wilt.

‘Tis not thus we give drowned sailors burial.

How then? I know nothing of your customs in Hellas.

We unmoor, and carry out to sea all that is the dead man’s
due.

What am I to give thee then for thy dead husband?

Myself I cannot say; I had no such experience in my previous
happy life.

Stranger, thou art the bearer of tidings I welcome.

Well, I do not, nor yet doth the dead man.

How do ye bury those who have been drowned at sea?

Each according to his means.

As far as wealth goes, name thy wishes for this lady’s
sake.

There must be a blood-offering first to the dead.

Blood of what? Do thou show me and I will comply.

Decide that thyself; whate’er thou givest will suffice.

Amongst barbarians ’tis customary to sacrifice a horse
or bull,

If thou givest at all, let there be nothing mean in thy
gift.

I have no lack of such in my rich herds

Next an empty bier is decked and carried in procession.

It shall be so; what else is it customary to add?

Bronze arms; for war was his delight.

These will be worthy of the race of Pelops, and these
will we give.

And with them all the fair increase of productive earth.

And next, how do ye pour these offerings into the billows?

There must be a ship ready and rowers.

How far from the shore does the ship put out?

So far that the foam in her wake can scarce be seen from
the strand.

Why so? wherefore doth Hellas observe this custom?

That the billow may not cast up again our expiatory offerings.

Phoenician rowers will soon cover the distance.

‘Twill be well done, and gratifying to Menelaus, too.

Canst thou not perform these rites well enough without
Helen?

This task belongs to mother, wife, or children.

‘Tis her task then, according to thee, to bury her husband.

To be sure; piety demands that the dead be not robbed of
their due.

Well, let her go; ’tis my interest to foster piety in
a wife. And thou, enter the house and choose adornment for the dead.
Thyself, too, will not send empty-handed away, since thou hast done
her a service. And for the good news thou hast brought me, thou shalt
receive raiment instead of going bare, and food, too, that thou mayst
reach thy country; for as it is, I see thou art in sorry plight. As
for thee, poor lady, waste not thyself in a hopeless case; Menelaus
has met his doom, and thy dead husband cannot come to life.