Tecmessa: And which, were the choice thine, wouldst thou prefer,
To afflict thy friends and feel delight thyself,
Or to share sorrow, grieving with their grief?
Leader: The twofold woe, lady, would be the greater.
Tecmessa: Then we, though plagued no more, are undone now.
Leader: What mean thy words? Their sense is dark to me.
Tecmessa: Yonder man, while his spirit was diseased,
Himself had joy in his own evil plight,
Though to us, who were sane, he brought distress.
But now, since he has respite from his plague,
He with sore grief is utterly cast down,
And we likewise, no less than heretofore.
Are there not here two woes instead of one?
Leader: Yes truly. And I fear, from some god came
This stroke; how else? if, now his frenzy is ceased,
His mind has no more ease than when it raged.
Studies
