_Ner._ My lords, ’tis done. Nay, look not grieved. There’s none Suffers as much as I; all share the good. And think not that to keep the world at peace I grudge this sacrifice: the general care I set before my own, and therefore bid There be no public mourning, nay, to-morrow We shall attend the spectacles and games, 3230 Appear as usual before the people: Ay, and I partly look, my lords, to you That I be well received. Good night to all! ACHILLES IN SCYROS DRAMATIS PERSONÆ _THETIS_ _Mother of Achilles_. _ACHILLES_ _disguised as PYRRHA_. _LYCOMEDES_ _King of Scyros_. _ULYSSES_ _Prince of Ithaca_. _DIOMEDE_ _compassion of Ulysses_. _ABAS_ _servant to Ulysses_. _DEIDAMIA_ _daughter of Lycomedes_. _CHORUS of SCYRIAN MAIDENS._ _The scene is on the Island of Scyros, in the gardens of the palace._ _Thetis prologises._ ACHILLES _THETIS._ The deep recesses of this rocky isle, That far from undersea riseth to crown Its flowery head above the circling waves, A home for men with groves and gardens green, I chose not ill to be the hiding-place Of my loved son. Alas, I could not take him To live in my blue caverns, where the nymphs Own me for queen: and hateful is the earth To me, and all remembrance, since that morn, When, in the train of May wandering too far, 10 I trafficked with my shells and pearls to buy Her fragrant roses and fresh lilies white. Accurst the day and thou, ah, wretched Peleus, Who forcedst me to learn the fears that women Have for their mortal offspring: who but I, Thetis, Poseidon’s daughter, who alone But I of all the immortals have known this, To bear and love a son in human kind? And yet not wholly ill is the constraint, Nor do I pity mortals to be born 20 Heirs of desire and death, and the rich thought Denied to easy pleasure in the days That neither bring nor take; tho’ more to me Embittered with foreknowledge of a doom Threatened by fate, and labour how to avert. For to me, questioning the high decrees By which the sweetly tyrannous stars allot Their lives and deaths to men, answer was given That for my son Achilles there was ruled One of two things, and neither good; the better 30 A long and easy life, the worse a death Untimely-glorious, which should set his name First of the Greeks;—for so must seem to me Better and worse, so even an earthly mother Had for him chosen, tho’ for the right he died, And conquered all the gods that succour Troy.— But when I, thinking he must share my fear, Showed him the choice, he made a mortal plunge