Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/209



And who hath told thee what thou tell’st me, child?

Envoys who visited the Delphic hearth.

Hath Phoebus spoken thus concerning me?

So say the envoys who returned to Thebes.

And can a son of mine have heard of this?

Yea, both alike, and know its import well.

They knew it, yet the ignoble greed of rule

Outweighed all longing for their sire’s return.

Grievous thy words, yet I must own them true.

Then may the gods ne’er quench their fatal feud,

And mine be the arbitrament of the fight,

For which they now are arming, spear to spear;

That neither he who holds the sceptre now

May keep his throne, nor he who fled the realm

Return again. They never raised a hand,

When I their sire was thrust from hearth and home;

When I was banned and banished, what recked they?

Say you ’twas done at my desire, a grace

Which the State, yielding to my wish, allowed?

Not so; for, mark you, on that very day

When in the tempest of my soul I craved 187