Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/259

273–314] Poor man, some scanty rags, and a thin store

Of provender. Such food be theirs, I pray!

Imagine, O my son, when they were gone,

What wakening, what arising, then was mine;

What weeping, what lamenting of my woe!

When I beheld the ships, wherewith I sailed,

Gone, one and all! and no man in the place,

None to bestead me, none to comfort me

In my sore sickness. And where’er I looked,

Nought but distress was present with me still.

No lack of that, for one thing!—Ah! my son,

Time passed, and there I found myself alone

Within my narrow lodging, forced to serve

Each pressing need. For body’s sustenance

This bow supplied me with sufficient store,

Wounding the feathered doves, and when the shaft,

From the tight string, had struck, myself, ay me!

Dragging this foot, would crawl to my swift prey.

Then water must be fetched, and in sharp frost

Wood must be found and broken,—all by me.

Nor would fire come unbidden, but with flint

From flints striking dim sparks, I hammered forth

The struggling flame that keeps the life in me.

For houseroom with the single help of fire

Gives all I need, save healing for my sore.

Now learn, my son, the nature of this isle.

No mariner puts in here willingly.

For it hath neither moorage, nor sea-port,

For traffic or kind shelter or good cheer.

Not hitherward do prudent men make voyage.

Perchance one may have touched against his will.

Many strange things may happen in long time.

These, when they come, in words have pitied me,

And given me food, or raiment, in compassion.

But none is willing, when I speak thereof,

To take me safely home. Wherefore I pine

Now this tenth year, in famine and distress,

Feeding the hunger of my ravenous plague.

Such deeds, my son, the Atridae, and the might

Of sage Odysseus, have performed on me.