Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/307

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Life's pathway unheeded and unrenowned:

But little I envy the high in place.

Yet the life of these is glory-crowned.

Ah, still with the glory is peril bound.

Sweetly ambition tempteth, I trow;

Yet is it neighbour to sore disquiet.

For the Gods' will clasheth with thy will now,

Wrecking thy life: by men that riot

With divers desires, whom ye cannot content,

Now is the web of thy life's work rent.

Nay, in a king I love not this repining.

Atreus begat thee, Agamemnon, not

Only to bask in days all cloudless-shining:

Needs must be joy and sorrow in thy lot.

Mortal thou art: though marred be thy designing,

Still to fulfilment is the Gods' will brought.

Thou the star-glimmer of thy lamp hast litten,

Writest a letter—in thine hand yet grasped,—

Then thou erasest that which thou hast written,

Sealest, and breakest bands as soon as clasped;

Castest to earth the pine-slip, ever streaming

Tears from thine eyes; nor lacketh anything

Of madness in thy gestures aimless-seeming.

What is thy grief, thy strange affliction, king?