Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/270

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In fable I have heard,

Though sight hath ne’er confirmed the word,

How he who attempted once the couch supreme,

To a whirling wheel by Zeus the all-ruler bound,

Tied head and heel, careering ever round,

Atones his impious unsubstantial dream.

Of no man else, through eye or ear,

Have I discerned a fate more full of fear

Than yonder sufferer’s of the cureless wound:

Who did no violence, defrauded none:—

A just man, had he dwelt among the just

Unworthily behold him thrust

Alone to hear the billows roar

That break around a rugged shore!

How could he live, whose life was thus consumed with moan?

Where neighbour there was none:

No arm to stay him wandering lone,

Unevenly, with stumbling steps and sore;

No friend in need, no kind inhabitant,

To minister to his importunate want,

No heart whereto his pangs he might deplore.

None who, whene’er the gory flow

Was rushing hot, might healing herbs bestow,

Or cull from teeming Earth some genial plant

To allay the anguish of malignant pain

And soothe the sharpness of his poignant woe.

Like infant whom the nurse lets go,

With tottering movement here and there,

He crawled for comfort, whensoe’er

His soul-devouring plague relaxed its cruel strain.

Not fed with foison of all-teeming Earth

Whence we sustain us, ever-toiling men,

But only now and then

With wingèd things, by his wing’d shafts brought low,

He stayed his hunger from his bow.