Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/243

1117–1149]

Less wrathfully distempered than ’tis now;

Else thou canst never know, where thou art keen

With vain resentment and with vain desire.

. Speak what thou wilt and cease, for I in pain Catch not the sense of thy mysterious talk.

. I come to tell thee of my mother’s case, And her involuntary unconscious fault.

. Base villain! hast thou breathed thy mother’s name, Thy father’s murderess, in my hearing too!

. Her state requires not silence, but full speech.

. Her faults in former time might well be told.

. So might her fault to-day, couldst thou but know.

. Speak, but beware base words disgrace thee not.

. List! She is dead even now with new-given wound.

. By whom? Thy words flash wonder through my woe.

. Her own hand slaughtered her; no foreign stroke.

. Wretch! to have reft this office from my hands.

. Even your rash spirit were softened, if you knew.

. This bodes some knavery. But declare thy thought!

. She erred with good intent. The whole is said.

. Good, O thou villain, to destroy thy sire!

. When she perceived that marriage in her home,

She erred, supposing to enchain thy love.

. Hath Trachis a magician of such might?

. Long since the Centaur Nessus moved her mind

To work this charm for heightening thy desire.

. O horror, thou art here! I am no more.

My day is darkened, boy! Undone, undone!

I see our plight too plainly: woe is me!

Come, O my son!—thou hast no more a father,—

Call to me all the brethren of thy blood,

And poor Alcmena, wedded all in vain