Tecmessa
W^hich cruel fortune brings on human kind :
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Of noblest race (a better, Phrygia boasts not)
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Tecmessa was, and from a father sprung
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Happy and free, though now a wretched slave ;
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For so the gods and thy all-conqu'ring arm
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Decreed : but since partaker of thy bed.
Thou knovv'st I ever have with tend'rest care
Watched o'er thee : therefore, by domestic Jove,
Here I entreat thee, by the sacred tie
That binds us, let me not with foul reproach
And bitter scorn be taunted by thy foes,
When they surround me, as I know they will :
For oh ! when thou shalt die, that very day
The Greeks with violence will seize on me ;
Tecmessa then and thy loved son shall eat
The bread of slavery. Then some haughty lord,
Insulting loud, shall cry, behold the wife
How is she fall'n ! from envied happiness
To servitude and woe ! Such vile upbraidings
Oft shall I hear, on thee and on thy race
Casting foul shame. Oh, then relent, my Ajax 1
Think on thy father in the vale of years,
Think on thy aged mother, who with vows
Incessant prays the gods to send thee back
Safe to thy native land ! Pity thy son,
Without a father in his tender youth
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To form his mind, left to the unfriendly hands
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Of those who love him not. Alas ! what woes
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Wilt thou bequeath to me and to tliy child !
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I have no hope, no stay but thee alone.
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Thy hand destroyed my country and my mother ;
Death snatched my father to the realms below.
Deprived of thee what country will receive me,
Or where shall I subsist ? Thou art my all,
My only safeguard : do not, do not leave me !
Nought so becomes a man as gratitude
For good received, and noble deeds are still
The offspring of benevolence, whilst he
With whom remembrance dies of blessings past
