Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/103

939–974]

. O woe, woe, woe!

. Thou may’st prolong thy moan, and be believed,

Thou that hast lately lost so true a friend.

. Thou may’st imagine; ’tis for me to know.

. Ay, ay, ’tis true.

. Alas, my child! what slavish tasks and hard

We are drifting to! What eyes control our will!

. Ay me! Through thy complaint

I hear the wordless blow

Of two high-throned, who rule without restraint

Of Pity. Heaven forfend

What evil they intend!

. The work of Heaven hath brought our life thus low.

. ’Tis a sore burden to be laid on men.

. Yet such the mischief Zeus’ resistless maid,

Pallas, hath planned to make Odysseus glad.

. O’er that dark-featured soul

What waves of pride shall roll,

What floods of laughter flow,

Rudely to greet this madness-prompted woe,

Alas! from him who all things dares endure,

And from that lordly pair, who hear, and seat them sure!

. Ay, let them laugh and revel o’er his fall!

Perchance, albeit in life they missed him not,

Dead, they will cry for him in straits of war.

For dullards know not goodness in their hand,

Nor prize the jewel till ’tis cast away.

To me more bitter than to them ’twas sweet.

His death to him was gladsome, for he found

The lot he longed for, his self-chosen doom.

What cause have they to laugh? Heaven, not their crew,

Hath glory by his death. Then let Odysseus

Insult with empty pride. To him and his

Aias is nothing; but to me, to me,

He leaves distress and sorrow in his room!

(within). Alas, undone!