Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/169

137–172]

. Lament, nor praying breath

Will raise thy sire, our honoured chief,

From that dim multitudinous gulf of death.

Beyond the mark, due grief that measureth,

Still pining with excess of pain

Thou urgest lamentation vain,

That from thy woes can bring thee no relief.

Why hast thou set thy heart on unavailing grief?

. Senseless were he who lost from thought

A noble father, lamentably slain!

I love thy strain,

Bewildered mourner, bird divinely taught,

For ‘Itys,’ ‘Itys,’ ever heard to pine.

O Niobè, I hold thee all divine,

Of sorrows queen,

Who with all tearful mien

Insepulchred in stone

Aye makest moan.

. Not unto thee alone hath sorrow come,

Daughter, that thou shouldst carry grief so far

Beyond those dwellers in the palace-home

Who of thy kindred are

And own one source with thee.

What life hath she,

Chrysothemis, and Iphianassa bright,

And he whose light

Is hidden afar from taste of horrid doom,

Youthful Orestes, who shall come

To fair Mycenae’s glorious town,

Welcomed as worthy of his sire’s renown,

Sped by great Zeus with kindly thought,

And to this land with happiest omen brought?

. Awaiting him I endlessly endure;

Unwed and childless still I go,

With tears in constant flow,

Girt round with misery that finds no cure.

But he forgets his wrong and all my teaching.

What message have I sent beseeching,

But baffled flies back idly home?

Ever he longs, he saith, but, longing, will not come.