Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/235



’Tis fear constrains me.

My soul knows no fear!

Thou knowest not what threats—

I know that none

Shall hale thee hence in my despite. Such threats

Vented in anger oft, are blusterers,

An idle breath, forgot when sense returns.

And for thy foemen, though their words were brave,

Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find

The seas between us wide and hard to sail.

Such my firm purpose, but in any case

Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name,

Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.

Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest,

O stranger worn with toil,

To a land of all lands the goodliest

Colonus’ glistening soil.

’Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale,

Who hid in her bower, among

The wine-dark ivy that wreathes the vale,

Trilleth her ceaseless song;

And she loves, where the clustering berries nod

O’er a sunless, windless glade,

213