An. I know it well. Ch. What, then, is thy thought?
An. How we are to go home, I cannot tell. Ch. And do not seek to go.
An. Trouble besets us. Ch. And erstwhile bore hardly on you.
An. Desperate then, and now more cruel than despair.
Ch. Great, verily, is the sea of your troubles.
An. Alas, alas! O Zeus, whither shall we turn? To what last hope doth fate now urge us?1750
Enter Theseus, on the spectators' right.
syst. Th. Weep no more, maidens; for where the kindness of the Dark Powers is an abiding grace to the quick and to the dead, there is no room for mourning; divine anger would follow.
An. Son of Aegeus, we supplicate thee!
Th. For the obtaining of what desire, my children?
An. We fain would look with our own eyes upon our father's tomb.
Th. Nay, it is not lawful.
An. How sayest thou, king, lord of Athens?
Th. My children,1760 he gave me charge that no one should draw nigh unto that place, or greet with voice the sacred tomb wherein he sleeps. And he said that, while I duly kept that word, I should always hold the land unharmed. These pledges, therefore, were heard from my lips by the god, and by the all-seeing Watcher of oaths, the servant of Zeus.
