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The first messenger enters in haste.
Messenger
Menelaos, I find you, after taking great trouble to look for you, wandering over the whole of this foreign land; I am sent by the comrades whom you left behind. Menelaos
[600] What is it? Surely you are not being plundered by the foreigners? Messenger
It is a miracle; what I say is of less account than what happened. Menelaos
Tell me; for, judging by this eagerness, you are certainly bringing something new. Messenger
I say that you have suffered countless labors in vain. Menelaos
You are mourning over old sorrows; what is your message? Messenger
[605] Your wife has disappeared, taken up into the folds of the unseen air; she is hidden in heaven, and as she left the hallowed cave where we were keeping her, she said this: “Miserable Phrygians, and all the Achaeans! On my account you were dying by the banks of Skamandros, [610] through Hera's contrivance, for you thought that Paris had Helen when he didn't. But I, since I have stayed my appointed time, and kept the laws of fate, will now depart into the sky, my father; but the unhappy daughter of Tyndareus, [615] guilty in no way, has borne an evil name without reason.” Catching sight of Helen
Welcome, daughter of Leda, were you here after all? I was just announcing your departure up to the hidden starry realms, not knowing that you had a winged body. I will not let you mock us like this again, [620] for you gave your fill of trouble to your husband and his allies in Ilion. Menelaos
This is the meaning of that; her words have turned out to be true. O longed-for day, that has given you to my arms!
Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 2. Helen, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.
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