Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/167

72–101]

A wealthy line of fair posterity!

I have spoken. To thy charge! and with good heed

Perform it. We go forth. The Occasion calls,

Great taskmaster of enterprise to men.

(within). Woe for my hapless lot!

. Hark! from the doors, my son, methought there came

A moaning cry, as of some maid within.

. Can it be poor Electra? Shall we stay,

And list again the lamentable sound?

. Not so. Before all else begin the attempt

To execute Apollo’s sovereign will,

Pouring libation to thy sire: this makes

Victory ours, and our success assured.

. O purest light!

And air by earth alone

Measured and limitable, how oft have ye

Heard many a piercing moan,

Many a blow full on my bleeding breast,

When gloomy night

Hath slackened pace and yielded to the day!

And through the hours of rest,

Ah! well ’tis known

To my sad pillow in yon house of woe,

What vigil of scant joyance keeping,

Whiles all within are sleeping,

For my dear father without stint I groan,

Whom not in bloody fray

The War-god in the stranger-land

Received with hospitable hand,

But she that is my mother, and her groom,

As woodmen fell the oak,

Cleft through the skull with murdering stroke.

And o’er this gloom

No ray of pity, save from only me,

Goes forth on thee,