Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/257

205–237]

Started from the neighbouring ground.

Here, or there? Ah! now I know.

Hark! ’tis the voice of one in pain,

Travelling hardly, the deep strain

Of human anguish, all too clear,

That smites my heart, that wounds mine ear.

. From far it peals. But thou, my son!

. What?

. Think again. He moveth nigh:

He holds the region: not with tone

Of piping shepherd’s rural minstrelsy,

But belloweth his far cry,

Stumbling perchance with mortal pain,

Or else in wild amaze,

As he our ship surveys

Unwonted on the inhospitable main.

. Ho!

What men are ye that to this desert shore,

Harbourless, uninhabited, are come

On shipboard? Of what country or what race

Shall I pronounce ye? For your outward garb

Is Grecian, ever dearest to this heart

That hungers now to hear your voices’ tune.

Ah! do not fear me, do not shrink away

From my wild looks: but, pitying one so poor,

Forlorn and desolate in nameless woe,

Speak, if with friendly purpose ye are come.

Oh answer! ’Tis not meet that I should lose

This kindness from your lips, or ye from mine.

. Then know this first, O stranger, as thou wouldest,

That we are Greeks.

. O dear, dear name! Ah me!

In all these years, once, only once, I hear it!

My son, what fairest gale hath wafted thee?

What need hath brought thee to the shore? What mission?