PHORKYAS
Nathless 'tis said thou didst in two-fold shape appear;
Seen within Ilion's walls, and seen in Egypt too.
HELENA
Confuse thou not my brain, distraught and desolate!
Here even, who I am in sooth I cannot tell.
PHORKYAS
'Tis also said, from out the hollow shadow-dream,
Achilles, passion-fired, hath joined himself to thee,
Whom he hath loved of old, 'gainst all resolves of Fate.
HELENA
As phantom I myself, to him a phantom bound;
A dream it was—thus e'en the very words declare.
I faint, and to myself a phantom I become.
[She sinks into the arms of the semi-chorus._]
CHORUS
Silence! Silence!
False seeing one, false speaking one, thou!
Through thy horrible, single-tooth'd lips,
Ghastly, what exhaleth
From such terrible loathsome gulf!
For the malignant one, kindliness feigning,
Rage of wolf 'neath the sheep's woolly fleece,
Far more terrible is unto me than
Jaws of the hound three-headed.
Anxiously watching stand we here:
When? How? Where of such malice
Bursteth the tempest
From this deep-lurking brood of Hell?
Now, 'stead of friendly words, freighted with comfort,
Lethe-bestowing, gracious and mild,
Thou art summoning from times departed,
Thoughts of the past most hateful,
Overshadowing not alone
All sheen gilding the present,
Also the future's
Mildly glimmering light of hope.