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314 strength,—help thou,—for strength is at thy command, too largely to need my aid in his relief.

. My hands are helping; but no resource, in myself or from another, avails me to make his life forget its anguish:—such is the doom appointed by Zeus!

. O my son, where art thou? Raise me,—take hold of me,—thus, thus! Alas, my destiny!

Again, again the cruel pest leaps forth to rend me, the fierce plague with which none may cope!

O Pallas, Pallas, it tortures me again! Alas, my son, pity thy sire,—draw a blameless sword, and smite beneath my collar-bone, and heal this pain wherewith thy godless mother hath made me wild! So may I see her fall,—thus, even thus, as she hath destroyed me!

Sweet Hades, brother of Zeus, give me rest, give me rest,—end my woe by a swiftly-sped doom!

. I shudder, friends, to hear these sorrows of our lord; what a man is here, and what torments afflict him!

. Ah, fierce full oft, and grievous not in name alone, have been the labours of these hands, the burdens borne upon these shoulders! But no toil ever laid on me by the wife of Zeus or by the hateful Eurystheus was like unto this thing which the daughter of Oeneus, fair and false, hath fastened upon my back,—this woven net of the Furies, in which I perish! Glued to my sides, it hath eaten my flesh to the inmost parts; it is ever with me, sucking the channels of my breath; already it hath drained my fresh life-blood, and my