酷兔英语

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Ho there! thou that with fearful effort seekest to reach the
basement of the tomb and the pillars of burnt sacrifice, stay thee.

Wherefore art flying? Ah! with what speechless amaze the sight of thee
affects me!

HELEN
O friends! I am being ill-treated. This man is keeping me from the

tomb, and is eager to take and give me to his master, whose wooing I
was seeking to avoid.

MENELAUS
No robber I, or minister of evil.

HELEN
At any rate the garb wherein thou art clad is unseemly.

MENELAUS
Stay thy hasty flight; put fear aside.

HELEN
I do so, now that I have reached this spot.

MENELAUS
Who art thou? whom do I behold in thee, lady?

HELEN
Nay, who art thou? The self-same reason prompts us both.

MENELAUS
never saw a closer resemblance.

HELEN
Great God! Yea, for to recognize our friends is of God.

MENELAUS
Art thou from Hellas, or a native of this land?

HELEN
From Hellas; but I would learn thy story too.

MENELAUS
Lady, in thee I see a wondrouslikeness to Helen.

HELEN
And I in thee to Menelaus; I know not what to say.

MENELAUS
Well, thou hast recognized aright a man of many sorrows.

HELEN
Hail! to thy wife's arms restored at last!

MENELAUS
Wife indeed! Lay not a finger on my robe.

HELEN
The wife that Tyndareus, my father, gave thee.

MENELAUS
O Hecate, giver of light, send thy visions favourably!

HELEN
In me thou beholdest no spectre of the night, attendant on the

queen of phantoms.
MENELAUS

Nor yet am I in my single person the husband of two wives.
HELEN

What other woman calls thee lord?
MENELAUS

The inmate of yonder cave, whom I from Troy convey.
HELEN

Thou hast none other wife but me.
MENELAUS

Can it be my mind is wandering, my sight failing?
HELEN

Dost not believe thou seest in me thy wife?
MENELAUS

Thy form resembles her, but the real truth robs me of this belief.
HELEN

Observe me well; what need hast thou of clearer proof?
MENELAUS

Thou art like her; that will I never deny.
HELEN

Who then shall teach thee, unless it be thine own eyes?
MENELAUS

Herein is my dilemma; I have another wife.
HELEN

To Troy I never went; that was a phantom.
MENELAUS

Pray, who fashions living bodies?
HELEN

The air, whence thou hast a wife of heaven's workmanship.
MENELAUS

What god's handiwork? Strange is the tale thou tellest.
HELEN

Hera made it as a substitute, to keep me from Paris.
MENELAUS

How then couldst thou have been here, and in Troy, at the same
time?

HELEN
The name may be in many a place at once, though not the body.

MENELAUS
Unhand me! the sorrows I brought with me suffice.

HELEN
What! wilt leave me, and take that phantom bride away?

MENELAUS
For thy likeness unto Helen, fare thee well.

HELEN
Ruined! in thee I found my lord only to lose thee.

MENELAUS
The greatness of my troubles at Troy convinces me; thou dost not.

HELEN
Ah, woe is me! who was ever more unfortunate than I? Those whom

I love best are leaving me, nor shall I ever reach Hellas, my own dear
native land.

(The FIRST MESSENGER enters in haste.)
MESSENGER

At last I find thee, Menelaus, after an anxious search, not till I
have evandered through the length and breadth of this foreign

strand; I am sent by thy comrades, whom thou didst leave behind.
MENELAUS

What news? surely you are not being spoiled by the barbarians?
MESSENGER

A miracle hath happened; my words are too weak for the reality.
MENELAUS

Speak; for judging by this haste, thou hast stirring news.
MESSENGER

My message is: thy countless toils have all been toiled in vain.
MENELAUS

That is an old tale of woe to mourn! come, thy news?
MESSENGER

Thy wife hath disappeared, soaring away into the embracing air; in
heaven she now is hidden, and as she left the hollowed cave where we

were guarding her, she hailed us thus, "Ye hapless Phrygians, and
all Achaea's race! for me upon Scamander's strand by Hera's arts ye

died from day to day, in the false belief that Helen was in the
hands of Paris. But I, since I have stayed my appointed time, and kept

the laws of fate, will now depart unto the sky that gave me birth; but
the unhappy daughter of Tyndareus, through no fault of hers, hath

borne an evil name without reason." (Catching Sight of HELEN) Daughter
of Leda, hail to thee, so thou art here after all! I was just

announcing thy departure to the hiddenstarry realms, little knowing
that thou couldst fly at will. I will not a second time let thee flout

us thus, for thou didst cause tiki lord and his comrades trouble all
for naught in Ilium.

MENELAUS
This is even what she said; her words are proved true; O

longed-for day, how hath it restored thee to my arms!
HELEN

O Menelaus, dearest husband, the time of sorrow has been long, but
joy is now ours at last. Ah, friends, what joy for me to hold my

husband in a fond embrace after many a weary cycle of yon blazing lamp
of day!

MENELAUS
What joy for me to hold my wife! but with all that I would ask

about these years, I now know not where I may first begin.
HELEN

O rapture! the very hair upon my head starts up for joy! my
tears run down! Around thy neck I fling my arms, dear husband, to

hug my joy to me.
MENELAUS

O happy, happy sight! I have no fault to find; my wife, he
daughter of Zeus and Leda, is mine again, she whom her brothers on

their snow-white steeds, whilst torches blazed, made my happy bride,
but gods removed her from my home. Now is the deity guiding us to a

new destiny, happier than of yore.
HELEN

Evil into good transformed hath brought us twain together at last,
dear husband; but late though it be, God grant me joy of my good luck!

MENELAUS
God grant thee joy! I join thee in the self-same prayer; for of us

twain one cannot suffer without the other.
HELEN

No more, my friends, I mourn the past; no longer now I grieve.
My own dear husband is restored to me, whose coming from Troy I have

waited many a long year.
MENELAUS

I to thee, and thou to me. And after these long, long years I have
at last discovered the fraud of the goddess. But these tears, in

gladness shed, are tears of thankfulness rather than of sorrow.
HELEN

What can I say? What mortal heart could e'er have had such hope?
To my bosom I press thee, little as I ever thought to.

MENELAUS
And I to mine press thee, who all men thought hadst gone to

Ida's town and the hapless towers of Ilium.
HELEN

Ah me! ah me! that is a bitter subject to begin on.
MENELAUS

Tell me, I adjure thee, how wert thou from my home conveyed?
HELEN

Alas! alas! 'tis a bitter tale thou askest to hear.
MENELAUS

Speak, for I must hear it; all that comes is Heaven's gift.
HELEN

I loathe the story I am now to tell.
MENELAUS

Tell it for all that. 'Tis sweet to hear of trouble past.
HELEN

I ne'er set forth to be the young barbarian's bride, with oars and
wings of lawless love to speed me on my way.

MENELAUS
What deity or fate tore thee from thy country, then?

HELEN
Ah, my lord! 'twas Hermes, the son of Zeus, that brought and

placed me by the banks of Nile.
MENELAUS

A miracle! Who sent thee thither? O monstrous story!
HELEN

I wept, and still my eyes are wet with tears. 'Twas the wife of
Zeus that ruined me.

MENELAUS
Hera? wherefore should she afflict us twain?

HELEN
Woe is me for my awful fate! Woe for those founts and baths

where the goddesses made brighter still that beauty, which evoked
the fatal verdict!

MENELAUS
Why did Hera visit thee with evil regarding this verdict?

HELEN


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