ãGirls, whither hath my mother gone and left me in grievous sorrow, she that yester-even with me took the keys of the chamber and entered one bed with me and fell asleep?ä
So spake she weeping and the girls wailed with her. And the women gathered by the vestibule on either side and sought to stay Hermione in her lamentation:
ãSorrowing child, stay thy lamentation; thy mother has gone, yet shall she come back again. While still thou weepest, thou shalt see her. Seest not? thine eyes are blinded with tears and thy blooming cheeks are marred with much weeping. Haply she hath gone to a meeting of women in assembly and, wandering from the straight path, stands distressed, or she hath gone to the meadow and sits on the dewy plain of the Hours, or she hath gone to wash her body in the river of her fathers and lingered by the streams of Eurotas.ä
Then spake the sorrowful maiden weeping: ãShe knows the hill, she hath skill of the riversâ flow, she knows the paths to the roses, to the meadow. What say ye to me, women? The stars sleep and she rests among the rocks; the stars rise, and she comes not home. My mother, where art thou? in what hills dost thou dwell? Have wild beasts slain thee in thy wandering? but even the wild beasts tremble before the offspring of high Zeus. Hast thou fallen from thy car on the levels of the dusty ground, and left thy body in the lonely thickets? but I have scanned the trees of the many-trunked copses in the shady wood, yea, even to the very leaves, yet thy form have I not seen; and the wood I do