Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/235

Rh Stood forth, and up and down he swayed his head,

And groaned and groaned again with quivering hands,

Frenzy-distraught, and shouted hunter-like:

"Pylades, seest thou her?—dost mark not her,

Yon Hades-dragon, lusting for my death,

Her hideous vipers gaping upon me?

And yon third, breathing fire and slaughter forth,

Flaps wings—my mother in her arms she holds—

Ha, now to a rock-mass changed!—to hurl her down!

Ah! she will slay me! Whither can I fly?"

We could not see these shapes: his fancy changed

Lowing of kine and barking of the dogs

To howlings which the Fiends sent forth, he said.

We, cowering low, as men that looked to die,

Sat hushed. With sudden hand he drew his sword,

And like a lion rushed amidst the kine,

Smote with the steel their flanks, pierced through their ribs,—

Deeming that thus he beat the Erinnyes back,—

So that the sea-brine blossomed with blood-foam.

Thereat each man, soon as he marked the herds

Harried and falling slain, 'gan arm himself,

Blowing on conchs and gathering dwellers-round;

For we accounted herdmen all too weak