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This search, at our desperate master's word, [1220] we went to make, and in the furthest part of the tomb we saw her hanging by the neck, fastened by a halter of fine linen threads, while he was embracing her with arms thrown around her waist, bewailing the loss of his bride to the spirits below, as well as his father's deeds, and his grief-filled marriage. [1225] But his father, when he saw him, cried aloud with a dreadful cry and went in and called to him with a voice of wailing: “Ah, unhappy boy, what have you done! What plan have you seized on? By what misfortune have you lost your reason? [1230] Come out, my son, I pray you, I beg you!” But the boy glared at him with savage eyes, spat in his face, and without a word in response drew his twin-edged sword. As his father rushed out in flight, he missed his aim. Then the ill-fated boy was enraged with himself [1235] and straightway stretched himself over his sword and drove it, half its length, into his side. Still conscious, he clasped the maiden in his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, he shot onto her pale cheek a swift stream of oozing blood. [1240] Corpse enfolding corpse he lay, having won his marriage rites, poor boy, not here, but in Hades' palace, and having shown to mankind by how much the failure to reason wisely is the most severe of all afflictions assigned to man.Eurydice departs into the house.

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  • Commentary references to this page (2):
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes, 67
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae, 434
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