Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/233

766–802] There issued flame mingled with blood, a sweat

Rose on his flesh, and close to every limb

Clung, like stone-drapery from the craftsman’s hand,

The garment, glued unto his side. Then came

The tearing pangs within his bones, and then

The poison feasted like the venomed tooth

Of murderous basilisk.—When this began,

He shouted on poor Lichas, none to blame

For thy sole crime, ‘What guile is here, thou knave?

What was thy fraud in fetching me this robe?’

He, all-unknowing, in an evil hour

Declared his message, that the gift was thine.

Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm

Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot

Where the ankle turns i’ the socket, and, with a thought,

Hurled on a surf-vex’d reef that showed i’ the sea:

And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain

Being scattered with the blood. Then the great throng

Saddened their festival with piteous wail

For one in death and one in agony.

And none had courage to approach my sire,—

Convulsed upon the ground, then tossed i’ the air

With horrid yells and crying, till the cliffs

Echoed round, the mountain-promontories

Of Locris, and Euboea’s rugged shore.

Wearied at length with flinging on the earth,

And shrieking oft with lamentable cry,

Cursing the fatal marriage with thyself

The all-wretched, and the bond to Oeneus’ house,

That prize that was the poisoner of his peace,

He lifted a wild glance above the smoke

That hung around, and ’midst the crowd of men

Saw me in tears, and looked on me and said,

‘O son, come near; fly not from my distress,

Though thou shouldst be consumed in my death,

But lift and bear me forth; and, if thou mayest,

Set me where no one of mankind shall see me.

But if thy heart withhold thee, yet convey me

Out of this land as quickly as ye may.

Let me not die where I am now.’ We then,