Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/67

Rh (Str. 2) Unto thee too, Epaphus, scion

Of our first mother Io, I moan,

Unto thee, of our lord Zeus sprung,

With my alien chant upflung

And with prayers of an alien tongue!

Thy sons, who reared Thebes to thee, cry on

Their father—O come to thine own!

(Ant. 2) For Demeter, Persephonê, wearing

Twin names, have our land in ward—

Even gracious Demeter All-queen,

Who is Earth, nurse of all that hath been,—

O send them, thy people to screen

From the evil, the Queens Torch-bearing!—

Is there aught for the Gods too hard?

Go thou, and Kreon bring, Menoikeus' son,

Who is my mother's, even Jocasta's brother.

This tell him, that I would commune with him

Touching our own advantage and the land's,

Ere we go battleward and range the spears.

But lo, he cometh, sparing thy foot's toil.

Myself behold him drawing nigh mine halls.

Enter Kreon.

Seeking to see thee, far I have wended, King

Eteokles; round to all Kadmean gates

And guards, still searching for thy face, I passed.

Sooth, Kreon, fain was I to look on thee: