Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/22

 Mightily still spreading and waxing!

Woe's me! I dread the horror to come. Yea, to a public death doomed

Will he die, if in truth his be the hand that wielded

The red sword that in frenzy hath slain the herds and mounted herdsmen.

TECMESSA

Ah me! Thence was it, thence that he came to me

Leading his captive flock from the pastures!

Thereof in the tent some did he slaughter,

Others hewed he asunder with slashing sword;

Then he caught up amain two white-footed rams,

Sliced off from the one both the head and the tongue,

And flings them away;

But the other upright to a pillar he binds,

Then seizing a heavy horse-harnessing thong

He smites with the whistling doubled lash,

Uttering fierce taunts which an evil fiend,

No mere mortal could have taught him.

CHORUS

'Tis time that nów eách with shamefully muffled head

Forth from the camp should creep with stealthy footsteps.

Nay, on the ship let us muster, and benched at the oars

Over the waves launch her in swift flight.

Such angry threats sound in our ears hurled by the brother princes,

The Atreidæ: and I quake, fearing a death by stoning,

The dread portion of all who would share our hapless master's ruin.

TECMESSA

Yet hope we: for ceased is the lightning's flash:

His rage dies down like a fierce south-wind.

But now, grown sane, new misery is his;

For on woes self-wrought he gazes aghast,

Wherein no hand but his own had share;

And with anguish his soul is afflicted.