Page:Sophocles (Storr 1919) v2.djvu/157

 For if to dust and nothingness the dead

Are doomed, nor blood for blood be shed,

Farewell to sanctities of law,

Farewell to reverence and awe.

I came in thy behalf no less than mine,

Daughter, but if my words displease thee, well,

Have it thy way; we follow thee no less.

It shames me, friends, that ye should thus set down

To frowardness my too persistent grief.

But since I yield to hard necessity,

Bear with me. How indeed could any woman

Of noble blood who sees her father’s home

Plague-stricken, as I see it night and day,

And each day stricken worse, not do as I?

For me a mother’s love has turned to hate;

In my own home on sufferance I live

With my sire’s murderers, on whose will it rests

To give or to withhold my daily bread.

Think what a life is mine, to see each day

Aegisthus seated on my father’s throne,

Wearing the royal robes my father wore,

Pouring libations on the hearth, whereat

He slew him, and, to crown his insolence,

The assassin lays him in my father’s bed

Beside my mother—mother shall I call 145