Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/214

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Sad Dêanira, bride of battle-wooing,

Ne’er lets her tearful eyelids close in rest,

But in love-longing breast,

Like some lorn bird its desolation rueing,

Of her great husband’s way

Still mindful, worn with harrowing fear

Lest some new danger for him should be near,

By night and day

Pines on her widowed couch of ceaseless thought,

With dread of evil destiny distraught:

[Enter.

For many as are billows of the South

Blowing unweariedly, or Northern gale,

One going and another coming on

Incessantly, baffling the gazer’s eye,

Such Cretan ocean of unending toil

Cradles our Cadmus-born, and swells his fame.

But still some power doth his foot recall

From stumbling down to Hades’ darkling hall.

Wherefore, in censure of thy mood, I bring

Glad, though opposing, counsel. Let not hope

Grow weary. Never hath a painless life

Been cast on mortals by the power supreme

Of the All-disposer, Cronos’ son. But joy

And sorrow visit in perpetual round

All mortals, even as circleth still on high

The constellation of the Northern sky.

What lasteth in the world? Not starry night,

Nor wealth, nor tribulation; but is gone

All suddenly, while to another soul

The joy or the privation passeth on.

These hopes I bid thee also, O my Queen!

Hold fast continually, for who hath seen

Zeus so forgetful of his own?

How can his providence forsake his son?

. I see you have been told of my distress,

And that hath brought you. But my inward woe,

Be it evermore unknown to you, as now!