Returning thus, to find his empty chair!
[_The Women hesitate; then the Leader comes forward_.]

LEADER
O Theseus, not on any old man's head
This stroke falls. Young and tender is the dead.

THESEUS
Ye Gods! One of my children torn from me?

LEADER
Thy motherless children live, most grievously.

THESEUS
How sayst thou? What? My wife? ...
Say how she died.
LEADER
In a high death-knot that her own hands tied.

THESEUS
A fit of the old cold anguish? Tell me all--
That held her? Or did some fresh thing befall?

LEADER
We know no more. But now arrived we be,
Theseus, to mourn for thy calamity.
[THESEUS _stays for a moment silent, and puts his hand on his brow.
He notices the wreath_.]

THESEUS