Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/165

 and the Old Man— is present.

. Son of the king who led the Achaean host

Erewhile beleaguering Troy, ’tis thine to-day

To see around tliee what through many a year

Thy forward spirit hath sighed for. Argolis

Lies here before us, hallowed as the scene

Of Io’s wildering pain: yonder, the mart

Named from the wolf-slaying God, and there, to our left,

Hera’s famed temple. For we reach the bourn

Of far-renowned Mycenae, rich in gold.

And Pelops’ fatal roofs before us rise,

Haunted with many horrors, whence my hand,

Thy murdered sire then lying in his gore,

Received thee from thy sister, and removed

Where I have kept thee safe and nourished thee

To this bright manhood thou dost bear, to be

The avenger of thy father’s bloody death.

Wherefore, Orestes, and thou, Pylades,

Dearest of friends, though from a foreign soil,

Prepare your enterprise with speed. Dark night

Is vanished with her stars, and day’s bright orb

Hath waked the birds of morn into full song.

Now, then, ere foot of man go forth, ye two

Knit counsels. ’Tis no time for shy delay:

The very moment for your act is come.

. Kind faithful friend, how well thou mak’st appear

Thy constancy in service to our house!

As some good steed, aged, but nobly bred,

Slacks not his spirit in the day of war,

But points his ears to the fray, even so dost thou

Press on and urge thy master in the van.

Hear, then, our purpose, and if aught thy mind,