Ah! Misery! Mother has gone, gone to the...

EUMELUS (chanting) Ah! Misery!

Mother has gone,

Gone to the Underworld!

She lives no more,

O my Father,

In the sunlight.

O sad one,

You have left us

To live motherless!

See, Oh, see her eyelids

And her drooping hands!

Mother, Mother,

Hearken to me, listen,

I beseech you!

I--I--Mother!--

I am calling to you,

Your little bird fallen upon your face!

Father, I am a child,

And I am left

Like a lonely ship

By the mother I loved.

Oh! The cruel things I suffer!

And you, little sister,

Suffer with me.

O my Father,

Vain, vain was your wedding,

You did not walk with her

To the end of old age.

She died first;

And your death, O Mother,

Destroys our house.

Euripides, Alcestis. Trans. Richard Aldington. http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html