Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/109

1158–1185]

For all may read my riddle—thou art he.

. I will be gone. ’Twere shame to me, if known,

To chide when I have power to crush by force.

. Off with you, then! ’Twere triple shame in me

To list the vain talk of a blustering fool.

[Exit

High the quarrel rears his head!

Haste thee, Teucer, trebly haste,

Grave-room for the valiant dead

Furnish with hat speed thou mayst,

Hollowed deep within the ground,

Where beneath his mouldering mound

Aias aye shall be renowned.

. Lo! where the hero’s housemate and his child,

Hitting the moment’s need, appear at hand,

To tend the burial of the ill-fated dead.

Come, child, take thou thy station close beside:

Kneel and embrace the author of thy life,

In solemn suppliant fashion holding forth

This lock of thine own hair, and hers, and mine

With threefold consecration, that if one

Of the army force thee from thy father’s corse,

My curse may banish him from holy ground,

Far from his home, unburied, and cut off

From all his race, even as I cut this curl.

There, hold him, child, and guard him; let no hand

Stir thee, but lean to the calm breast and cling.

(To ) And ye, be not like women in this scene,

Nor let your manhoods falter; stand true men

To this defence, till I return prepared,

Though all cry No, to give him burial.

When shall the tale of wandering years be done?

When shall arise our exile’s latest sun?