Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/200

130 This robe invoking that achieved his doom,

Deeds I lament, and woes, and all my race,

Pollution reaping from this victory.

Alas! alas! no son of mortal race,

Unscathed life's pathway to the end may trace.

Woe! Woe!

Fadeth one grief, another comes apace.

That ye betimes may learn, (since I myself

Know not the issue,) for as charioteer

With steeds ungoverned, from the course I swerve;

Thoughts past control are whirling me along,

Their captive slave; while terror in my heart

Her pæan and her frenzied dance prepares.

Hear me, my friends, while Reason holds her seat;

With Justice' sanction I my mother smote,

My father's slayer, a god-hated pest.

As prime incitement to the daring act

Of Loxias I plead this oracle;

That, if I slew, blameless I should be held;

But if I failed;—my doom I will not speak;

For bowshot cannot reach such mighty woe.

And now behold,—bearing this olive-branch,

Enwreathed with wool, as suppliant I seek

Earth's navel stone, Apollo's seat, where burns

The flame of fire, deathless that hath been named,

Fleeing from kindred blood. For other hearth