cause of many tears. Let him perish in the contest if it be his lot to
die in the field. For how could I prepare the charms without my parents'
knowledge? What story can I tell them? What trick, what cunning device
for aid can I find? If I see him alone, apart from his comrades, shall I
greet him? Ill-starred that I am! I cannot hope that I should rest from
my sorrows even though he perished; then will evil come to me when he is
bereft of life. Perish all shame, perish all glory; may he, saved by my
effort, go scatheless wherever his heart desires. But as for me, on the
day when he bides the contest in triumph, may I die either straining my
neck in the noose from the roof-tree or tasting drugs destructive of
life. But even so, when I am dead, they will fling out taunts against
me; and every city far away will ring with my doom, and the Colchian
women, tossing my name on their lips hither and thither, will revile me
with unseemly mocking--the maid who cared so much for a stranger that
she died, the maid who disgraced her home and her parents, yielding to a
mad passion. And what disgrace will not be mine? Alas for my
infatuation! Far better would it be for me to forsake life this very
night in my chamber by some mysterious fate, escaping all slanderous
reproach, before I complete such nameless dishonour."

She spake, and brought a casket wherein lay many drugs, some for
healing, others for killing, and placing it upon her knees she wept. And
she drenched her bosom with ceaseless tears, which flowed in torrents as
she sat, bitterly bewailing her own fate. And she longed to choose a
murderous drug to taste it, and now she was loosening the bands of the
casket eager to take it forth, unhappy maid! But suddenly a deadly fear
of hateful Hades came upon her heart. And long she held back in
speechless horror, and all around her thronged visions of the pleasing
cares of life. She thought of all the delightful things that are among
the living, she thought of her joyous playmates, as a maiden will; and