y breast!
Yet then another man would bring this news,
Wherewith from end to end Arcadia rings.--
O honour'd Queen, thy son, my charge, is gone.

_The Chorus_

Too suddenly thou tellest such a loss.
Look up, O Queen! look up, O mistress dear!
Look up, and see thy friends who comfort thee.

_Merope_

Ah ... Ah ... Ah me!

_The Chorus_

And I, too, say, ah me!

_Arcas_

Forgive, forgive the bringer of such news!

_Merope_

Better from thine than from an enemy's tongue.

_The Chorus_

And yet no enemy did this, O Queen:
But the wit-baffling will and hand of Heaven.

_Arcas_

No enemy! and what hast thou, then, heard?
Swift as I came, hath falsehood been before?

_The Chorus_

A youth arrived but now--the son, he said,
Of an Arcadian lord--our prince's friend--
Jaded with travel, clad in hunter's garb.
He brought report that his own eyes had seen
The prince, in chase after a swimming stag,
Swept down a chasm rifted in the cliff
Which hangs o'er the Stymphalian Lake, and drown'd.

_Arcas_

Ah me! with what a foot doth treason post,
While loyalty, with all her speed, is slow!
Another tale, I trow, thy messenger
For the King's private ear reserves, like this
In one thing only, that the prince is dead.

_The Chorus_

And how then runs this true and private tale?

_Arcas_

As much to the King's wish, more to his shame.
This young Arcadian noble, guard and mate
To AEpytus, the king seduced with gold,
And had him at the prince's side in leash,
Ready to slip on his unconscious prey.
He on a hunting party two days since,
Among the forests on Cyllene's side,
Perform'd good service for his bloody wage;
Our prince, and the good Laias, whom his ward
Had in a father's place, he basely murder'd.
'Tis so, 'tis so, alas, for see the proof:
Uncle and nephew disappear; their death
Is charged against this stripling; agents, fee'd
To ply 'twixt the Messenian king and him,
Come forth, denounce the traffic and the traitor.
Seized, he escapes--and next I find him here.
Take this for true, the other tale for feign'd.

_The Chorus_

The youth, thou say'st, we saw and heard but now--

_Arcas_

He comes to tell his prompter he hath sped.

_The Chorus_

Still he repeats the drowning story here.

_