Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/236

202

. Ah! mighty, O my daughters! was the grief

Sprung from the gift to Heracles conveyed!

. What new thing is befallen? Why speak’st thou so?

. Our Queen hath found her latest journey’s end.

Even now she is gone, without the help of feet.

. Not dead?

. You know the whole.

. Dead! hapless Queen!

. The truth hath twince been told.

. O tell us how!

What was her death, poor victim of dire woe?

. Most ruthless was the deed.

. Say, woman, say!

What was the sudden end?

. Herself she slew.

. What rage, what madness, clutched

The mischief-working brand?

How could her single thought

Contrive the accomplishment of death on death?

. Chill iron stopped the sources of her breath.

. And thou, poor helpless crone, didst see this done?

. Yea, I stood near and saw.

. How was it? Tell!

. With her own hand this violence was given.

. What do I hear?

. The certainty of truth.

. A child is come,

From this new bridal that hath rushed within,

A fresh-born Fury of woe!

. Too true. But hadst thou been at hand to see

Her action, pity would have wrung thy soul.

. Could this be ventured by a woman’s hand?

. Ay, and in dreadful-wise, as thou shalt hear.

When all alone she had gone within the gate,

And passing through the court beheld her boy

Spreading the couch that should receive his sire,