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Hippolytus/The Bacchae by Euripides
page 69 of 164 (42%)
A dear head battering at the chariot side,
Sharp rocks, and rippled flesh, and a voice that cried:
"Stay, stay, O ye who fattened at my stalls,
Dash me not into nothing!--O thou false
Curse of my Father!--Help! Help, whoso can,
An innocent, innocent and stainless man!"
Many there were that laboured then, I wot,
To bear him succour, but could reach him not,
Till--who knows how?--at last the tangled rein
Unclasped him, and he fell, some little vein
Of life still pulsing in him.
All beside,
The steeds, the horned Horror of the Tide,
Had vanished--who knows where?--in that wild land.
O King, I am a bondsman of thine hand;
Yet love nor fear nor duty me shall win
To say thine innocent son hath died in sin.
All women born may hang themselves, for me,
And swing their dying words from every tree
On Ida! For I know that he was true!

LEADER
O God, so cometh new disaster, new
Despair! And no escape from what must be!

THESEUS
Hate of the man thus stricken lifted me
At first to joy at hearing of thy tale;
But now, some shame before the Gods, some pale
Pity for mine own blood, hath o'er me come.
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