Your bowels too, condemned to such a curse! Out went the king; my voice its freedom found, My breasts I beat, my blubbered cheeks I wound. And now appeared the messenger of death; Sad were his looks, and scarce he drew his breath, To say, "Your father sends you"--(with that word His trembling hands presented me a sword;) "Your father sends you this; and lets you know, That your own crimes the use of it will show." Too well I know the sense those words impart; His present shall be treasured in my heart. Are these the nuptial gifts a bride receives? And this the fatal dower a father gives? Thou God of marriage, shun thy own disgrace, And take thy torch from this detested place! Instead of that, let furies light their brands, And fire my pile with their infernal hands! With happier fortune may my sisters wed, Warned by the dire example of the dead. For thee, poor babe, what crime could they pretend? How could thy infant innocence offend? A guilt there was; but, oh, that guilt was mine! Thou suffer'st for a sin that was not thine. Thy mother's grief and crime! but just enjoyed, Shewn to my sight, and born to be destroyed! Unhappy offspring of my teeming womb! Dragged headlong from thy cradle to thy tomb! Thy unoffending life I could not save, Nor weeping could I follow to thy grave; Nor on thy tomb could offer my shorn hair, Nor shew the grief which tender mothers bear. Yet long thou shalt not from my arms be lost; For soon I will overtake thy infant ghost. But thou, my love, and now my love's despair, Perform his funerals with paternal care; His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, And once more join us in the pious urn. If on my wounded breast thou droppest a tear, Think for whose sake my breast that wound did bear; And faithfully my last desires fulfil, As I perform my cruel father's will. FOOTNOTES: [12] These lines are original. HELEN TO PARIS. EPIST. XVII.[13] THE ARGUMENT. _Helen, having received an epistle from Paris, returns the following answer; wherein she seems at first to chide him for his presumption in writing as he had done, which could only proceed from his low opinion of her virtue; then owns herself to be sensible of the passion which he had expressed for her, though she much suspected his constancy; and at last discovers her inclination to be favourable to him; the whole letter shewing the extreme artifice of womankind._