that are near the house--My
mistress the wife of Theseus is hanging.

CHOR. Alas! alas! the deed is done: the queen is indeed no more--she is
suspended in the noose that hangs there.

SERV. Will ye not haste? will not some one bring a two-edged sword, with
which we may undo this knot around her neck?

SEMICHOR. My friends, what do we? does it seem good to enter the house and
to free the queen from the tight-drawn noose?

SEMICHOR. Why we? Are not the young men-servants at hand? The being
over-busy is not a safe plan through life.

SERV. Lay right the wretched corpse, pull her limbs straight. A grievous
housekeeping this for my master!

CHOR. The unhappy woman, as I hear, has perished, for already are they
laying her out as a corpse.

THES. Know ye, females, what noise this is in my house? a heavy sound of my
attendants reached me. For the family does not think fit to open the gates
to me and to hail me with joy as having returned from the oracle. Has any
ill befallen the aged Pittheus? His life is now indeed far advanced; but
still he would be much lamented by us, were he to leave this house.

CHOR. This that has happened, Theseus, extends not to the old; the young
are they that by their death will grieve thee.

THES. Alas me! is the life of any of my children stolen from me?

CHOR. They live, but their mother is dead in a way that will grieve thee
most.

THES. What sayest? My wife dead? By what fate?

CHOR. She suspended the noose, wherewith she strangled herself.

THES. Wasted with sorrow, or from some sudden calamity?

CHOR. Thus much we know--_nothing further_; for I am but just come to thy
house, Theseus, to bewail thy evils.

THES. Alas! alas! why then have I my head crowned with entwined leaves, who
am the unhappy inquirer of the oracle? Servants, undo the bars of the
gates; unloose the bolts, that I may behold the mournful spectacle of my
wife, who by her death hath utterly undone me.

CHOR. Alas! alas! unhappy for thy wretched ills: thou hast been a sufferer;
thou hast perpetrated a deed of such extent as to throw this house into
utter confusion. Alas! alas! thy boldness, O thou who hast died a violent
death, and, by an unhallowed chance, the act committed by thy wretched
hand. Who is it then, thou unhappy one, that destroys thy life?

THES. Alas me for my sufferings![27] I have suffered, unhappy wretch, the
extreme of my troubles--O fortune, how heavy hast thou come upon me and my
house, a