Hermione: (chanting) Oh! why didst thou hunt me to snatch away my
sword? Give, oh! give it back, dear nurse, that I may thrust it through
my heart Why dost thou prevent me hanging myself?
Nurse: What! was I to let thy madness lead thee on to death?
Hermione: (chanting) Ah me, my destiny! Where can I find some friendly
fire? To what rocky height can I climb above the sea or 'mid some
wooded mountain glen, there to die and trouble but the dead?
Nurse: Why vex thyself thus? on all of us sooner or later heaven's
visitation comes.
Hermione: (chanting) Thou hast left me, O my father, left me like
a stranded bark, all alone, without an oar. My lord will surely slay
me; no home is mine henceforth beneath my husband's roof. What god
is there to whose statue I can as a suppliant haste? or shall I throw
myself in slavish wise at slavish knees? Would I could speed away
from Phthia's land on bird's dark pinion, or like that pine-built
ship, the first that ever sailed betwixt the rocks Cyanean!
Studies
