HIPPOLYTUS.
157
"Alas for mortal woes!
Alas for fell disease!
Better be sick than be the sick one's nurse;
Sickness is sickness, nothing worse;
Nursing is sorrow in double kind,
Sorrow of toiling hands, sorrow of troubled mind.
Our troubles know no healing."
And the final stave of the choral song unmistakably refers to Pericles:—
"Upon all in the city alike
This sudden sorrow will strike.
There will be much shedding of tears.
When evil assails the great
Many bewail his fate;
Grief for him grows with the years."
