Theseus: Women, can ye tell me what the uproar in the palace means?
There came the sound of servants weeping bitterly to mine ear. None
of my household deign to open wide the gates and give me glad welcome
as traveller from prophetic shrines. Hath aught befallen old Pittheus?
No, Though he be well advanced in years, yet should I mourn, were
he to quit this house.
Leader: 'Tis not against the old, Theseus, that fate, to strike thee,
aims this blow; prepare thy sorrow for a younger corpse.
Theseus: Woe is me! is it a child's life death robs me of?
Leader: They live; but, cruellest news of all for thee, their mother
is no more.
Theseus: What! my wife dead? By what cruel stroke of chance?
Leader: About her neck she tied the hangman's knot.
Theseus: Had grief so chilled her blood? or what had befallen her?
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