Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/283

1133–1168]

To wield thee with an archer’s might!

But in the grasp of an all-scheming wight,

O bitter change! thou art plied;

And swaying ever by his side,

Shalt view his life of dark malignity,

Teeming with guileful shames, like those he wrought on me.

. Nobly to speak for the right

Is manly and strong;

But not with an envious blight

To envenom the tongue;

He to serve all his friends of the fleet,

One obeying a many-voiced word,

Through the minist’ring craft of our lord

Hath but done what was meet.

. Come, legions of the wild,

Of aspect fierce or mild,

Fowl from the fields of air,

And beasts that roam with bright untroubled gaze,

No longer bounding from my lair

Fly mine approach! Now freely without fear

Ye may surround my covert and come near,

Treading the savage rock-strewn ways.

The might I had is no more mine,

Stolen with those arms divine.

This fort hath no man to defend.

Come satisfy your vengeful jaws, and rend

These quivering tainted limbs!

Already hovering death bedims

My fainting sense. Who thus can live on air,

Tasting no gift of earth that breathing mortals share?

. Ah! do not shrink from thy friend,

If love thou reverest,

But know ’tis for thee to forfend

The fate which thou fearest.

The lot thou hast here to deplore,

Is sad evermore to maintain,