Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/242

144 Sweeping away the dust which, lightly spread,

Covered the corpse, and laying stript and bare

The tainted carcase, on the hill we sat

To windward, shunning the infected air,

Each stirring up his fellow with strong words,

If any shirked his duty. This went on

Some time, until the glowing orb of day

Stood in mid heaven, and the scorching heat

Fell on us. Then a sudden whirlwind rose,

A scourge from heaven, raising squalls on earth,

And filled the plain, the leafage stripping bare

Of all the forest, and the air's vast space

Was thick and troubled, and we closed our eyes,

Until the plague the Gods had sent was past;

And when it ceased, a weary time being gone,

The girl is seen, and with a bitter cry,

Shrill as a bird's, when it beholds its nest

All emptied of its infant brood, she wails;

Thus she, when she beholds the corpse all stript,

Groaned loud with many moanings, and she called

Fierce curses down on those who did the deed.

And in her hand she brings some fine, dry dust,

And from a vase of bronze, well wrought, upraised,

She pours the three libations o'er the dead.

And we, beholding, give her chase forthwith,

And run her down, nought terrified at us.

And then we charged her with the former deed,

As well as this. And nothing she denied.

But this to me both bitter is and sweet,

For to escape one's-self from ill is sweet,

But to bring friends to trouble, this is hard