Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/125

Rh What time, in these adornments vainly tricked,

To friends and enemies, with one consent,

All undeserved, a laughter I became:

Vagrant yclept, poor hunger-stricken wretch,

A strolling mountebank, I bare it all;

And now the seer (his vengeance wreaked on me

The seeress) calls me to this deadly fate.

My father at the altar fell, but me

The slaughter-block awaiteth, smitten down

By stroke relentless, reeking with hot gore.

Yet not unhonoured of the gods we fall;

For other champion of our cause shall come,

Seed matricidal, venger of his sire.

An exiled wanderer, from this land estranged,

Returns, this vengeance for his friends to crown.

For, lo, the gods a mighty oath have sworn,

His father's prostrate form shall lead him home.

But why, an alien here, pour I my wail?

When that I first have seen my Ilion fare

As fared it hath, and they who won the town

In sorry plight, through judgment of the gods.

I'll do! I'll suffer! I will dare to die.

These gates, as gates of Hades, I adjure,

One prayer I offer, "mortal be the stroke;"

Free from convulsive throes, in easy death,

While ebbs my life-blood, may I close mine eyes.

Oh woman, thou most wretched and most wise;

Lengthy thy speech hath been; but if thou knowest

Truly thine own sad doom, how walkest thou

Like heaven-led victim, boldly to the altar?