Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/218

206 . Woe, woe is me!

. The anguish pierces, I know, to thy true heart.

. Woe, woe is me!

. I marvel not, lady, that thou shouldst wail, and wail again, who hast lately been bereft of one so loved.

. 'Tis for thee to conjecture of these things,—for me, to feel them but too sorely.

. Yea, even so.

. Alas, my child, to what a yoke of bondage are we coming, seeing what task-masters are set over thee and me!

. Oh, the two Atreidae would be ruthless—those deeds of theirs would be unspeakable, which thou namest in hinting at such a woe! But may the gods avert it!

. Never had these things stood thus, save by the will of the gods.

. Yea, they have laid on us a burden too heavy to be borne.

. Yet such the woe that the daughter of Zeus, the dread goddess, engenders for Odysseus' sake.

. Doubtless, the patient hero exults in his dark soul, and mocks with keen mockery at these sorrows born of frenzy. Alas! And with him, when they hear the tidings, laugh the royal brothers, the Atreidae.

. Then let them mock, and exult in this man's woes. Perchance, though they missed him not while he lived, they will bewail him dead, in the straits of warfare. Ill-judging men know not the good that was in their hands, till they have lost it. To my pain hath he died more than for their joy, and to his own content.