Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/307

Rh Now hurled upon the ground, and now his limbs

To heaven exposing. Then the charioteers

Full hardly keeping back the rush of steeds,

Freed the poor corpse so bloody, that not one

Of all his friends would know him, and his body

They burnt upon the pyre; and now they bear,

The chosen of the Phokians that have come,

In a poor urn of bronze, a mighty form

Reduced to these sad ashes, that for him

May be a tomb within his fatherland.

Such is my tale, full sad, I trow, to hear,

But unto those who saw it as we saw,

The greatest of all evils I have known.

Chor. Woe, woe! So perish, root and branch, it seems,

The race of those our lords of long ago.

Clytem. Ο Zeus! What means this Shall I say, good news?

Or fearful, yet most gainful? Still 'tis sad

If by my sorrows I must save my life.

Attend. Why does my tale, Ο queen, thus trouble thee?

Clytem. Wondrous and strange the force of motherhood!

Though wronged, a mother cannot hate her children.

Attend. We then, it seems, are come to thee in vain.

Clytem. Nay, not in vain. How could it be in vain?

Since thou bring'st proofs that he is dead, who, born

Child of my heart, from breasts that gave him suck

Then turned aside, and dwelt on foreign soil

In banishment; and since he left our land

Ne'er came to see me, but with dreadful words,

His father's death still casting upon me,

Spake out his threats; so that nor day nor night

I knew sweet sleep, but still the sway of Time

Led on my life, as one condemned to death.

But now, (for lo! this day has stopped all fear