Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/241

1041–1080] Sweet Hades, with swift death,

Brother of Zeus, release my suffering breath!

. Horror hath caught me as I hear this woe,

Racking our mighty one with mightier pain.

. Many hot toils and hard beyond report,

With sturdy thews and sinews I have borne.

But no such labour hath the Thunderer’s wife

Or sour Eurystheus ever given, as this,

Which Oeneus’ daughter of the treacherous eye

Hath fastened on my back, this amply-woven

Net of the Furies, that is breaking me.

For, glued unto my side, it hath devoured

My flesh to the bone, and lodging in the lungs

It drains the vital channels, and hath drunk

The fresh life-blood, and ruins all my frame,

Foiled in the tangle of a viewless bond.

Yet me nor War-host, nor Earth’s giant brood,

Nor Centaur’s monstrous violence could subdue,

Nor Hellas, nor the Stranger, nor all lands

Where I have gone, cleansing the world from harms.

But a soft woman without manhood’s strain

Alone and weaponless hath conquered me.

Son, let me know thee mine true-born, nor rate

Thy mother’s claim beyond thy sire’s, but bring

Thyself from out the chambers to my hand

Her body that hath borne thee, that my heart

May be assured, if lesser than my pain

It will distress thee to behold her limbs

With righteous torment agonized and torn.

Nay, shrink not, son, but pity me, whom all

May pity—me, who, like a tender girl,

Am heard to weep aloud! This none could say

He knew in me of old; for, murmuring not,

I went with evil fortune, silent still.

Now, such a foe hath found the woman in me!

Ay, but come near; stand by me, and behold

What cause I have for crying. Look but here!

Here is the mystery unveiled. O see!

Ye people, gaze on this poor quivering flesh,

Look with compassion on my misery!