Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/132

120 bore that long pain without pause; and at the last a sight and a loss that baffle thought are ours to tell.

. And how is it with you? . We can but conjecture, friends.

. He is gone? . Even as thou mightest wish: yea, surely, when death met him not in war, or on the deep, but he was snatched to the viewless fields by some swift, strange doom. Ah me! and a night as of death hath come on the eyes of us twain: for how shall we find our bitter livelihood, roaming to some far land, or on the waves of the sea?

. I know not. Oh that deadly Hades would join me in death unto mine aged sire! Woe is me! I cannot live the life that must be mine.

. Best of daughters, sisters twain, Heaven's doom must be borne: be no more fired with too much grief: ye have so fared that ye should not repine.

. Ah, so care past can seem lost joy! For that which was no way sweet had sweetness, while therewith I held him in mine embrace. Ah, father, dear one, ah thou who hast put on the darkness of the under-world for ever, not even there shalt thou ever lack our love,—her love and mine.

. He hath fared—. He hath fared as he would.

. In what wise? . On foreign ground, the ground of his choice, he hath died; in the shadow of the grave he hath his bed for ever; and he hath left mourning behind him, not barren of tears. For with these streaming eyes, father, I bewail thee; nor know