Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/289

Rh Have on my mother's part, yes, hers who bore me,

Found deadliest hate; and then, in this my house,

Companion with my father's murderers,

I bow to them, and at their hands receive,

Or suffer want. And next, I pray thee, think

What kind of days I pass, beholding him,

Ægisthos, sitting on my father's throne,

And seeing him wear all his kingly robes,

And pouring forth libations on the hearth

Where his hands slew him; last, and worst of all,

I see that murderer in my father's couch,

With her, my wretched mother, if that name

Of mother I may give to one who sleeps

With such an one as he; and she is bold,

And lives with that adulterer, fearing not

The presence of Erinnyes, but, as one

Who laughs in what she does, she notes the day

In which she slew my father in her guile,

And on it forms her choral band, and slays

Her sheep each month, as victims to the Gods

That give deliverance; I, poor hapless one,

Beholding it, (ah misery!) within

Bewail, and pine, and mourn the fatal feast,

Full of all woe, that takes my father's name,—

I by myself alone. I dare not weep,

Not even weep, as fain my heart would wish;

For she, that woman, noble but in words,

Heaps on my head reproaches such as these:

"Ο impious, hateful mood! Has death deprived