Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/240

206 Ah! ah!

O vex me not, touch me not, leave me to rest,

To sleep my last sleep on Earth’s gentle breast.

You touch me, you press me, you turn me again,

You break me, you kill me! O pain! pain!

You have kindled the pang that had slumbered still.

It comes, it hath seized me with tyrannous will!

Where are ye, men, whom over Hellas wide

This arm hath freed, and o’er the ocean-tide,

And through rough brakes, from every monstrous thing?

Yet now in mine affliction none will bring

A sword to aid, a fire to quell this fire,

O most unrighteous! nor to my desire

Will come and quench the hateful life I hold

With mortal stroke! Ah! is there none so bold?

. Son of our hero, this hath mounted past

My feeble force to cope with. Take him thou!

Fresher thine eye and more the hope thou hast

Than mine to save him.

. I support him now

Thus with mine arm: but neither fleshly vest

Nor inmost spirit can I lull to rest

From torture. None may dream

To wield this power, save he, the King supreme.

. Son!

Where art thou to lift me and hold me aright?

It tears me, it kills me, it rushes in might,

This cruel, devouring, unconquered pain

Shoots forth to consume me. Again! again!

O Fate! O Athena!—O son, at my word

Have pity and slay me with merciful sword!

Pity thy father, boy; with sharp relief

Smite on my breast, and heal the wrathful grief

Wherewith thy mother, God-abandoned wife,

Hath wrought this ruin on her husband’s life.

O may I see her falling, even so

As she hath thrown me, to like depth of woe!