Page:Sophocles (Storr 1919) v2.djvu/165

 But good enough for me; and them I vex,

And vexing them do honour to the dead,

If anything can touch the world of shades.

Thou hatest? Nay, thy deeds belie thy words,

While thou consortest with the murderers;

So would not I, though they should offer me

The pomp that makes thee proud, the loaded board,

Thy life of ease; no, I would never yield.

Enough for me spare diet and a soul

Void of offence ; thy state I covet not,

Nor wouldst thou, wert thou wise. Men might have called thee

Child of the noblest sire that ever lived;

Be called thy mother’s, rightly named as base,

Betrayer of thy dead sire and thy kin.

No angry words, I pray, for both of you

There’s profit in this parleying, if thou

Wouldst learn of her, and she in turn of thee.

I know her moods too well to take offence,

Nor had I now approached her, but I learnt

Of new impending peril that is like

To put a finish to her long-drawn woes.

Say what can be this terror; if ’tis worse

Than what I now bear, I will call a truce.

All I have learnt in full I will impart.

They purpose, if thou wilt not stay thy plaints,

To send thee where thou shalt not see the sun,

Far hence, to some dark dungeon, there to spend

Thy days and nights in litanies of woe. 153