SEVENTH WOMAN. What! you are again becoming a woman, before we have punished you for having pretended it a first time!
MNESILOCHUS. "A thousand warriors have died on my account on the banks of the Scamander."
SEVENTH WOMAN. Why have you not done the same?
MNESILOCHUS. "And here I am upon these shores; Menelaus, my unhappy husband, does not yet come. Ah! how life weighs upon me! Oh! ye cruel crows, who have not devoured my body! But what sweet hope is this that sets my heart a-throb? Oh, Zeus! grant it may not prove a lying one!"
EURIPIDES (as Menelaus). "To what master does this splendid palace belong? Will he welcome strangers who have been tried on the billows of the sea by storm and shipwreck?"[627]
MNESILOCHUS. "This is the palace of Proteus."[628]
EURIPIDES. "Of what Proteus?"
[627] The whole of this dialogue between Mnesilochus and Euripides is composed of fragments taken from 'Helen,' slightly parodied at times.
Studies
