THE RAPE OF HELEN ♦ 



taking her handmaidens outside her chamber, with 

 shrillest cries she uttered her voice and said : 



" Girls, whither hath my mother gone and left me 

 in grievous sorrow, she that yester-even with me 

 took the keys of the chamber and entered one bed 

 i*ith me and fell asleep ? " . 



So spake she weeping and the girls wailed with her. 

 And the women gathered by the vestibule on either 

 side and sought to stay Hermione in her lamentation : 



" Sorrowing child, stay thy lamentation ; thy 

 mother has gone, yet shall she come back again. 

 While still thou weepest, thou shalt see her. Seest 

 not ? thine eyes are blinded with tears and thy 

 blooming cheeks are marred with much weeping. 

 Haply she hath gone to a meeting of women in 

 assembly and, wandering from the straight path, 

 stands distressed, or she hath gone to the meadow 

 and sits on the dewy plain of the Hours, or she hath 

 gone to wash her body in the river of her fathers 

 and lingered by the streams of Eurotas." 



Then spake the sorrowful maiden weeping : 

 " She knows the hill, she hath skill of the rivers* 

 flow, she knows the paths to the roses, to the ineadow. 

 What say ye to me, women ? The stars sleep and 

 she rests among the rocks ; the stars rise, and she 

 comes not home. My mother, where art thou ? in 

 what hills dost thou dwell ? Have wild beasts slain 

 thee in thy wandering ? but even the wild beasts 

 tremble before the offspring of high Zeus. Hast 

 thou fallen from thy car on the levels of the dusty 

 ground, and left thy body in the lonely thickets .'' 

 but I have scanned the trees of the niany-trunked 

 copses in the shady wood, yea, even to the verj' leaves, 

 yet thy form have I not seen ; and the wood I do 



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