THE HANDMAIDS Ah me, what thou hast suffered and hast done: A deed to wrap this roof in flame! Why was thine hand so strong, thine heart so bold? Wherefore. O dead in anger, dead in shame, The long, long wrestling ere thy breath was cold? O ill-starred Wife, What brought this blackness over all thy life? [_A throng of Men and Women has gradually collected_.] THESEUS Ah me, this is the last --Hear, O my countrymen!--and bitterest Of Theseus' labours! Fortune all unblest, How hath thine heavy heel across me passed! Is it the stain of sins done long ago, Some fell God still remembereth, That must so dim and fret my life with death? I cannot win to shore; and the waves flow Above mine eyes, to be surmounted not. Ah wife, sweet wife, what name Can fit thine heavy lot? Gone like a wild bird, like a blowing flame, In one swift gust, where all things are forgot! Alas! this misery! Sure 'tis some stroke of God's great anger rolled From age to age on me, For some dire sin wrought by dim kings of old. LEADER Sire, this great grief hath come to many an one, A true wife lost. Thou art not all alone. THESEUS Deep, deep beneath the Earth, Dark may my dwelling be, And night my heart's one comrade, in the dearth, O Love, of thy most sweet society. This is my death, O Phaedra, more than thine. [_He turns suddenly on the Attendants_.] Speak who speak can! What was it? What malign Swift stroke, O heart discounselled, leapt on thee? [_He bends over_ PHAEDRA; _then, as no one speaks looks fiercely up_.] What, will ye speak? Or are they dumb as death, This herd of thralls, my high house harboureth? [_There is no answer. He bends again over_ PHAEDRA.] SOME WOMEN Woe, woe! God brings to birth A new grief here, close on the other's tread! My life hath lost its worth. May all go now with what is finishèd! The castle of my King is overthrown, A house no more, a house vanished and gone! OTHER WOMEN O God, if it may be in any way, Let not this house be wrecked! Help us who pray! I know not what is here: some unseen thing That shows the Bird of Evil on the wing. [THESEUS _has read the tablet and breaks out in uncontrollable emotion_.] THESEUS Oh, horror piled on horror!--Here is writ... Nay, who could bear it, who could speak of it? LEADER What, O my King? If I may hear it, speak! THESEUS Doth not the tablet cry aloud, yea, shriek, Things not to be forgotten?--Oh, to fly And hide mine head! No more a man am I. God what ghastly music echoes here! LEADER How wild thy voice! Some terrible thing is near.