Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/181

 We move hushed lips in reverent piety.

But now some godless man,

’Tis rumoured, here abides;

The precincts through I scan,

Yet wot not where he hides,

The wretch profane!

I search and search in vain.

I am that man; I know you near,

Ears to the blind, they say, are eyes.

O dread to see and dread to hear!

O sirs, I am no outlaw under ban.

Who can he be—Zeus save us!—this old man?

No favourite of fate,

That ye should envy his estate,

O, Sirs, would any happy mortal, say,

Grope by the light of other eyes his way,

Or face the storm upon so frail a stay?

Wast thou then sightless from thy birth?

Evil, methinks, and long

Thy pilgrimage on earth.

Yet add not curse to curse and wrong to wrong.

I warn thee, trespass not

Within this hallowed spot, 159