Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/160

148

O curse of Œdipus! O malison

Dark—unrelenting—damning all his line!

Over this heart of mine

Comes creeping on,

Cold Misery, your chilly breath,

Because, when like a Thyiad in her madness

I seemed to hear

The blood that drips

Where men lie slain,

Then with the voice of mourning- and with rueful lips

I sang the song of death!

O ill refrain,

Glee chanted without mirth or gladness,

That keeps a sorry burden to the spear.

Rather the word, the never wearying

Once uttered malediction of their sire,

Wrought to this issue dire.

Nay, Laius King

Hath here his wish; the course he chose

Begun in blindness and in disobeying

Toucheth its bourne.

Ambitions high

And cares of State

Blunt not the edge of heavenly prophecy.

O, wailed for many woes,

Past belief in hate

And past belief in fratricidal slaying,

Is this a tale or is it sooth we mourn?

[The bodies of and  are borne on to the Stage.]