Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/230

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. O how I fear, my friends, lest all too far

I have ventured in my action of to-day!

. What ails thee, Dêanira, Oeneus’ child?

. I know not, but am haunted by a dread,

Lest quickly I be found to have performed A mighty mischief, through bright hopes betrayed.

. Thou dost not mean thy gift to Heracles?

. Indeed I do, Now I perceive how fond

Is eagerness, where actions are obscure.

. Tell, if it may be told, thy cause of fear.

. A thing is come to pass, which should I tell,

Will strike you with strange wonder when you learn.

For, O my friends, the stuff wherewith I dressed

That robe, a flock of soft and milkwhite wool,

Is shrivelled out of sight, not gnawn by tooth

Of any creature here, but, self-consumed,

Frittered and wasting on the courtyard-stones.

To let you know the circumstance at full,

I will speak on. Of all the Centaur-Thing,

When labouring in his side with the fell point

O’ the shaft, enjoined me, I had nothing lost,

But his vaticination in my heart

Remained indelible, as though engraved

With pen of iron upon brass. ’Twas thus:—

I was to keep this unguent closely hid

In dark recesses, where no heat of fire

Or warming ray might reach it, till with fresh

Anointing I addressed it to an end.

So I had done. And now this was to do,

Within my chamber covertly I spread

The ointment with piece of wool, a tuft

Pulled from a home-bred sheep; and, as ye saw,

I folded up my gift and packed it close

In hollow casket from the glaring sun.

But, entering in, a fact encounters me

Past human wit to fathom with surmise.

For, as it happened, I had tossed aside

The bit of wool I worked with, carelessly,