my husband. And thee another wife shall possess, not more true than I
am, but, maybe, more fortunate!" And after she had left the chamber, she
turned to it again and again with many tears. And all the while her
children clung to her garments, and she took them up in her arms, the
one first and then the other, and kissed them. And all the servants that
were in the house bewailed their mistress, nor did she fail to reach her
hand to each of them, greeting him. There was not one of them so vile
but she spake to him and was spoken to again.

After this, when the hour was now come when she must die, she cried to
her husband (for he held her in his arms, as if he would have stayed her
that she should not depart), "I see the boat of the dead, and Charon
standing with his hand upon the pole, who calleth me, saying, 'Hasten;
thou delayest us;' and then again, 'A winged messenger of the dead
looketh at me from under his dark eyebrows, and would lead me away. Dost
thou not see him?'" Then after this she seemed now ready to die, yet
again she gathered strength, and said to the King, "Listen, and I will
tell thee before I die what I would have thee do. Thou knowest how I
have given my life for thy life. For when I might have lived, and had
for my husband any prince of Thessaly that I would--and dwelt here in
wealth and royal state, yet could I not endure to be widowed of thee and
that thy children should be fatherless. There, fore I spared not myself,
though thy father and she that bare thee betrayed thee. But the Gods
have ordered all this after their own pleasure. So be it. Do thou
therefore make this recompense, which indeed thou owest to me, for what
will not a man give for his life? Thou lovest these children even as I
love them. Suffer them then to be rulers in this house, and bring not a
step-mother over them who shall hate them and deal with them unkindly.
A son, indeed, hath a tower of strength in his father. But, O my
daughter, how shall it fare with thee, for thy mother will not give thee