Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/285

1203–1233]

Hath o’er-mastered this offence,

Yield but one thing to my prayer!

. What wouldst thou have?

. Some weapon bare,

Axe or sword or sharpened dart,

Bring it to content my heart.

. What is thy new intent?

. To sever point by point

This body, joint from joint.

On bloody death my mind is bent.

. Wherefore?

. To see my father’s face.

. Where upon earth?

. He hath no place

Where sun doth shine, but in the halls of night.

O native country, land of my delight,

Would I were blest one moment with thy sight!

Why did I leave thy sacred dew

And loose my vessels from thy shore,

To join the hateful Danaän crew

And lend them succour? Oh, I am no more!

. Long since thou hadst seen me nearing yonder ship,

Had I not spied Odysseus and the son

Of great Achilles hastening to our side.

. Wilt thou not tell me why thou art hurrying

This backward journey with reverted speed?

. To undo what I have wrongly done to-day.

. Thy words appal me. What is wrongly done?

. When in obeying thee and all the host

. Thou didst what deed that misbecame thy life?

. I conquered with base stratagem and fraud

. Whom? What new plan is rising in thy mind?

. Not new. But to the child of Poeas here

. What wilt thou do? I quake with strange alarm.

. From whom I took these weapons, back again

. O Heaven! thou wilt not give them! Mean’st thou this?