“Thou liv’st by me, to me thy breath resign, Mine is the merit, the demerit thine; Thy life, by double title, I require, Once given at birth, and once preserved from fire: One murder pay, or add one murder more, And me to them, who fell by thee, restore.

“I would, but cannot, my son’s image stands Before my sight, and now their angry hands My brothers hold, and vengeance these exact, This pleads compassion, and repents the fact.

“He pleads in vain, and I pronounce his doom, My brothers, though unjustly, shall o’ercome; But having paid their injured ghosts their due, My son requires my death, and mine shall his pursue.”

At this, for the last time, she lifts her hand, Averts her eyes, and, half unwilling, drops the brand. The brand, amid the flaming fuel thrown, Or drew, or seem’d to draw, a dying groan; The fires themselves but faintly lick’d their prey, Then loathed their impious food, and would have shrunk away.