Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/181

581–620]

One die for one, thou first wilt be destroyed

If Justice find thee.—But again observe

The hollowness of thy pretended plea.

Tell me, I pray, what cause thou dost uphold

In doing now the basest deed of all,

Chambered with the blood-guilty, with whose aid

Thou slewest our father in that day. For him

You now bear children—ousting from their right

The stainless offspring of a holy sire.

How should this plead for pardon? Wilt thou say

Thus thou dost ’venge thy daughter’s injury?

O shameful plea? Where is the thought of honour,

If foes are married for a daughter’s sake?—

Enough. No words can move thee. Thy rash tongue

With checkless clamour cries that we revile

Our mother. Nay, no mother, but the chief

Of tyrants to us! For my life is full

Of weariness and misery from thee

And from thy paramour. While he abroad,

Orestes, our one brother, who escaped

Hardly from thy attempt, unhappy boy!

Wears out his life, victim of cross mischance.

Oft hast thou taunted me with fostering him

To be thy punisher. And this, be sure,

Had I but strength, I had done. Now for this word,

Proclaim me what thou wilt,—evil in soul,

Or loud in cursing, or devoid of shame:

For if I am infected with such guilt,

Methinks my nature is not fallen from thine.

. (looking at ). I see her fuming

with fresh wrath: the thought

Of justice enters not her bosom now.

. What thought of justice should be mine for her,

Who at her age can so insult a mother?

Will shame withhold her from the wildest deed?

. Not unashamed, assure thee. I stand here,

Little as thou mayest deem it. Well I feel

My acts untimely and my words unmeet.

But your hostility and treatment force me