Hoping to rear you to womanhood, we wandered blindly from the City and came down to the unknown country of the East. For your sake we set our hearts on this sad journey. If you are taken, what will become of us? How hideous!
DAUGHTER.
Do not sob so! If you or my father had drawn this lot, what should I have done? But now it has fallen to me, and it is hard for you to let me go.
TRAVELLER.
What brave words! “If you or my father had drawn this lot....” There is great piety in that saying. (To his WIFE.) Come, do not sob so before all these people. We are both parents and must have like feelings. But from the time I set out to this holy lottery something told me that of the three of us one would be taken. Look! I am not crying.
WIFE.
I thought as you did, yet ...
It is too much! Can it all be real?
TRAVELLER.
The father said “I will not show weakness,” yet while he was speaking bravely
Because she was his dear daughter
His secret tears
Could not be checked.