Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/105

1010–1046]

Returning without thee? Most like! being one

Who smiles no more, yield Fortune what she may.

Will he hide aught or soften any word,

Rating the bastard of his spear-won thrall,

Whose cowardice and dastardy betrayed

Thy life, dear Aias,—or my murderous guile,

To rob thee of thy lordship and thy home?

Such greeting waits me from the man of wrath,

Whose testy age even without cause would storm.

Last, I shall leave my land a castaway,

Thrust forth an exile, and proclaimed a slave;

So should I fare at home. And here in Troy

My foes are many and my comforts few.

All these things are my portion through thy death.

Woe ’s me, my heart! how shall I bear to draw thee,

O thou ill-starr’d! from this discoloured blade,

Thy self-shown slayer? Didst thou then perceive

Dead Hector was at length to be thine end?—

I pray you all, consider these two men.

Hector, whose gift from Aias was a girdle,

Tight-braced therewith to the car’s rim, was dragged

And scarified till he breathed forth his life.

And Aias with this present from his foe

Finds through such means his death-fall and his doom.

Say then what cruel workman forged the gifts,

But Fury this sharp sword, Hell that bright band?

In this, and all things human, I maintain,

Gods are the artificers. My thought is said.

And if there be who cares not for my thought,

Let him hold fast his faith and leave me mine.

. Spare longer speech, and think how to secure

Thy brother’s burial, and what plea will serve;

Since one comes here hath no good will to us

And like a villain haply comes in scorn.

. What man of all the host hath caught thine eye?

. The cause for whom we sailed, the Spartan King.

. Yes; I discern him, now be moves more near.