Page:Sophocles (Storr 1919) v2.djvu/147

 And I, O father, I alone of all

Thy house am left forlorn

To make my moan, to mourn

Thy piteous fall.

Yet never, while these eyes

Behold or sun or star-bespangled skies,

Will I restrain my plaint, my bitter cries;

But like some nightingale

My ravished nest bewail,

And through these halls shall sound my groans and sighs.

Halls of Persephonè and Death,

Guide of the shades, O Hermes, and O Wraith,

Ye god-sprung Furies dread

Who watch when blood is shed,

Or stained the marriage bed,

O aid me to avenge my father slain,

O send my brother back again!

Alone, no more I countervail

Grief that o’erloads the scale.

Enter.

Child of a mother all unblest,

Electra, how in grief that knows no rest

Thou witherest;

Mourning thy father’s cruel fate,

By her betrayed and slaughtered by her mate.

Black death await

The plotter of that sin,

If prayer so bold may answer win! 135