Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/104

48

Fear not the greybeard's hand: yea, nowise fear

Achilles' son: his insolence-cup is full;

Such toils of doom by this hand woven for him

With murder-meshes round him steadfast-staked

Are drawn: thereof I speak not ere the time;

But, when I strike, the Delphian rock shall know.

This mother-murderer —if the oaths be kept

Of spear-confederates in the Delphian land—

Shall prove none else shall wed thee, mine of right.

To his sorrow shall he ask redress of Phœbus

For a sire's blood! Nor shall repentance now

Avail him, who would make the God amends.

But by his wrath, and slanders sown of me,

Die shall he foully, and shall know mine hate:

For the God turns the fortune of his foes

To overthrow, nor suffereth their high thoughts.

[Exeunt Orestes and Hermionê.

O Phœbus, who gavest to Ilium a glory

Of diadem-towers on her heights,—and O Master

Of Sea-depths, whose grey-gleaming steeds o'er the hoary

Surf-ridges speed,—to the War-god, the Waster

With spears, for what cause for a spoil did ye cast her,

Whom your own hands had fashioned, dishonoured to lie

In wretchedness, wretchedness—her that was Troy?

And by Simoïs ye yoked to the chariots fleet horses

Unnumbered, in races of blood which contended,