if he must lose so good a wife.MaidAh yes! he weeps, holding in his arms his darling wife, and prays her not to leave him, impossible request! for she is worn and wasted with illness, and liesElmsley was the first to detect that a line has probably been lost here, containing some finite verb to complete the sense, which I have endeavoured to give by introducing lies into my translation. exhausted, a sad burden in his arms. Still, though her breath comes short and scant, she yearns to gaze yet on the sunshine, for nevermore, but now the last and latest time her eye shall see his radiant orb.These two lines, of frequent recurrence in Greek tragedy, are here rejected by Nauck. But I will go, thy presence to announce, for ’tis not all who have the goodwill to stand by their masters with kindly hearts in adversity. But thou of old hast been my master’s friend.

ChorusO Zeus, what way out of these sorrows can be found? how can we loose the bonds of fate that bind our lord?