Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/260

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Wherefore may all the Olympian gods, one day,

Plague them with stern requital for my wrong!

. Methinks my feeling for thee, Poeas’ child,

Is like that of thy former visitants.

. I, too, a witness to confirm his words,

Know them for verities, since I have found

The Atridae and Odysseus evil men.

. Art thou, too, wroth with the all-pestilent sons

Of Atreus? Have they given thee cause to grieve?

. Would that my hand might ease the wrath I feel!

Then Sparta and Mycenae should be ware

That Scyros too breeds valiant sons for war.

. Brave youth! I love thee. Tell me the great cause

Why thou inveighest against them with such heat?

. O son of Poeas, hardly shall I tell

What outrage I endured when I had come;

Yet I will speak it. When the fate of death

O’ertook Achilles

. Out, alas! no more!

Hold, till thou first hast made me clearly know,

Is Peleus’ offspring dead?

. Alas! he is,

Slain by no mortal, felled by Phoebus’ shaft:

So men reported—

. Well, right princely was he!

And princely is he who slew him. Shall I mourn

Him first, or wait till I have heard thy tale?

. Methinks thou hast thyself enough to mourn,

Without the burden of another’s woe.

. Well spoken. Then renew thine own complaint,

And tell once more wherein they insulted thee.

. There came to fetch me, in a gallant ship,

Odysseus and the fosterer of my sire,

Saying, whether soothly, or in idle show,

That, since my father perished, it was known

None else but I should take Troy’s citadel.

Such words from them, my friend, thou may’st believe,

Held me not long from making voyage with speed,