Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/231

Rh

O day when from his place

The Sun his winged steeds wheeled,

Turning the splendour of his holy face

From horrors there revealed!

That golden lamb hath brought

Woe added unto woe,

Pang upon pang, murder on murder wrought:

All these thy line must know.

Vengeance thine house must feel

For sons thereof long dead:

Their sins Fate, zealous with an evil zeal,

Visiteth on thine head.

From the beginning was to me accurst

My mother's spousal-fate:

The Queens of Birth with hardship from the first

Crushed down my childhood-state.

I, the first blossom of the bridal-bower

Of Leda's hapless daughter

By princes wooed, was nursed for that dark hour

Of sacrificial slaughter,

For vows that stained with sin my father's hands

When I was chariot-borne

Unto the Nereid's son on Aulis' sands—

Ah me, a bride forlorn!

Lone by a stern sea's desert shores I live

Loveless, no children clinging

To me—the homeless, friendless, cannot give

To Hera praise of singing