Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/182

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Against my disposition to this course.

Harsh ways are taught by harshness.

. Brazen thing!

Too true it is that words and deeds of mine

Are evermore informing thy harsh tongue.

. The shame is yours, because the deeds are yours.

My words are but their issue and effect.

. By sovereign Artemis, whom still I serve,

You’ll rue this boldness when Aegisthus comes.

. See now, your anger bears you off, and ne’er

Will let you listen, though you gave me leave.

. Must I not even sacrifice in peace

From your harsh clamour, when you’ve had your say?

. I have done. I check thee not. Go, sacrifice!

Accuse not me of hindering piety.

. (to an attendant). Then lift for me those fruitful offerings,

While to Apollo, before whom we stand,

I raise my supplication for release

From doubts and fears that shake my bosom now.

And, O defender of our house! attend

My secret utterance. No friendly ear

Is that which hearkens for my voice. My thought

Must not be blazoned with her standing by,

Lest through her envious and wide-babbling tongue

She fill the city full of wild surmise.

List, then, as I shall speak: and grant the dreams

Whose two-fold apparition I to-night

Have seen, if good their bodement, be fulfilled:

If hostile, turn their influence on my foes.

And yield not them their wish that would by guile

Thrust me from this high fortune, but vouchsafe

That ever thus exempt from harms I rule

The Atridae’s home and kingdom, in full life,

Partaking with the friends I live with now

All fair prosperity, and with my children,

Save those who hate and vex me bitterly.

Lvkeian Phoebus, favourably hear

My prayer, and grant to all of us our need!