Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/178

144

For should my mother know of it, sharp pain

Will follow yet my bold adventurous feat.

[Exit

An erring seer am I

Of sense and wisdom lorn,

If this prophetic Power of right,

O’ertaking the offender, come not nigh

Ere many an hour be born.

Yon vision of the night,

That lately breathed into my listening ear,

Hath freed me, O my daughter, from all fear.

Sweet was that bodement. He doth not forget,

The Achaean lord that gave thee being, nor yet

The bronzen-griding axe, edged like a spear,

Hungry and keen, though dark with stains of time,

That in the hour of hideous crime

Quelled him with cruel butchery:

That, too, remembers, and shall testify.

From ambush deep and dread

With power of many a hand

And many hastening feet shall spring

The Fury of the adamantine tread,

Visiting Argive land

Swift recompense to bring

For eager dalliance of a blood-stained pair

Unhallowed, foul, forbidden. No omen fair,—

Their impious course hath fixed this in my soul,—

Nought but black portents full of blame shall roll

Before their eyes that wrought or aided there.

Small force of divination would there seem

In prophecy or solemn dream,

Should not this vision of the night

Reach harbour in reality aright.

O chariot-course of Pelops, full of toil!

How wearisome and sore

Hath been thine issue to our native soil!—