Semichorus
Lament with a long lamentation,
Cry, for an end is at hand.
Second Messenger
O son, he said, son, lift thine eyes, draw breath,
Pity me; but Meleager with sharp lips
Gasped, and his face waxed like as sunburnt grass.
Semichorus
Cry aloud, O thou kingdom, O nation,
O stricken, a ruinous land.
Second Messenger
Whereat king Oeneus, straightening feeble knees,
With feeble hands heaved up a lessening weight,
And laid him sadly in strange hands, and wept.
Semichorus
Thou art smitten, her lord, her desire,
Thy dear blood wasted as rain.
Second Messenger
And they with tears and rendings of the beard
Bear hither a breathing body, wept upon
And lightening at each footfall, sick to death.
Semichorus
Thou madest thy sword as a fire,
With fire for a sword thou art slain.
Second Messenger
And lo, the feast turned funeral, and the crowns
Fallen; and the huntress and the hunter trapped;
And weeping and changed faces and veiled hair.
MELEAGER.
Let your hands meet
Round the weight of my head,
Lift ye my feet
As the feet of the dead;
For the flesh of my body is molten,
the limbs of it molten as lead.
CHORUS.
O thy luminous face,
Thine imperious eyes!
O the grief, O the grace,
As of day when it dies!
Who is this bending over thee, lord,
with tears and suppression of sighs?