Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/232

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O mother, mother!

I would to heaven one of three things were true:

Either that thou wert dead, or, living, wert

No mother to me, or hadst gained a mind

Furnished with better thoughts than thou hast now!

. My son! what canst thou so mislike in me?

. I tell thee thou this day hast been the death

Of him that was thy husband and my sire.

. What word hath passed thy lips? my child, my child!

. A word that must be verified. For who

Can make the accomplished fact as things undone?

. Alas, my son! what saidst thou? Who hath told

That I have wrought a deed so full of woe?

. ’Twas I myself that saw with these mine eyes

My father’s heavy state:—no hearsay word.

. And where didst thou come near him and stand by?

. Art thou to hear it? On, then, with my tale!

When after sacking Eurytus’ great city

He marched in triumph with first-fruits of war,—

There is a headland, last of long Euboea,

Surf-beat Cenaeum,—where to his father Zeus

He dedicates high altars and a grove.

There first I saw him, gladdened from desire.

And when he now addressed him to the work

Of various sacrifice, the herald Lichas

Arrived from home, bearing thy fatal gift,

The deadly robe: wherewith invested straight,

As thou hadst given charge, he sacrificed

The firstlings of the spoil, twelve bulls entire,

Each after each. But the full count he brought

Was a clear hundred of all kinds of head.

Then the all-hapless one commenced his prayer

In solemn gladness for the bright array.

But presently, when from the holy things,

And from the richness of the oak-tree core,