Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/102

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Thy ship-companion on the salt sea foam.

Alas for us, and thee,

Child of calamity!

. So lies our fortune. Well may’st thou complain.

. Whose hand employed he for the deed of blood?

. His own, ’tis manifest. This planted steel,

Fixed by his hand, gives verdict from his breast.

. Woe for my fault, my loss!

Thou hast fallen in blood alone,

And not a friend to cross

Or guard thee. I, deaf, senseless as a stone,

Left all undone. Oh, where, then, lies the stern

Aias, of saddest name, whose purpose none might turn?

. No eye shall see him. I will veil him round

With this all-covering mantle; since no heart

That loved him could endure to view him there,

With ghastly expiration spouting forth

From mouth and nostrils, and the deadly wound,

The gore of his self-slaughter. Ah, my lord!

What shall I do? What friend will carry thee?

Oh, where is Teucer! Timely were his hand,

Might he come now to smooth his brother’s corse.

O thou most noble, here ignobly laid,

Even enemies methinks must mourn thy fate!

. Ah! ’twas too clear thy firm-knit thoughts would fashion,

Early or late, an end of boundless woe!

Such heaving groans, such bursts of heart-bruised passion,

Midnight and morn, bewrayed the fire below.

‘The Atridae might beware!’

A plenteous fount of pain was opened there,

What time the strife was set,

Wherein the noblest met,

Grappling the golden prize that kindled thy despair!

. Woe, woe is me!

. Deep sorrow wrings thy soul, I know it well.