Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/166

132 Keenly attent, discerns of weak or crude

In this I now set forth, admonish me.

I, when I visited the Pythian shrine

Oracular, that I might learn whereby

To punish home the murderers of my sire,

Had word from Phoebus which you straight shall hear:

‘No shielded host, but thine own craft, O King!

The righteous death-blow to thine arm shall bring.’

Then, since the will of Heaven is so revealed,

Go thou within, when Opportunity

Shall marshal thee the way, and gathering all

Their business, bring us certain cognizance.

Age and long absence are a safe disguise;

They never will suspect thee who thou art.

And let thy tale be that another land,

Phocis, hath sent thee forth, and Phanoteus,

Than whom they have no mightier help in war.

Then, prefaced with an oath, declare thy news,

Orestes’ death by dire mischance, down-rolled

From wheel-borne chariot in the Pythian course.

So let the fable be devised; while we,

As Phoebus ordered, with luxuriant locks

Shorn from our brows, and fair libations, crown

My father’s sepulchre, and thence return

Bearing aloft the shapely vase of bronze

That ’s hidden hard by in brushwood, as thou knowest,

And bring them welcome tidings, that my form

Is fallen ere now to ashes in the fire.

How should this pain me, in pretence being dead,

Really to save myself and win renown?

No saying bodes men ill, that brings them gain.

Oft have I known the wise, dying in word,

Return with glorious salutation home.

So lightened by this rumour shall mine eye

Blaze yet like bale-star on mine enemies.

O native earth! and Gods that hold the land,

Accept me here, and prosper this my way!

Thou, too, paternal hearth! To thee I come,

Justly to cleanse thee by behest from heaven.

Send me not bootless, Gods, but let me found