Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/320

222 But is perchance a friend, or near in blood.

Elec. [Taking the urn in her hands.] Ο sole memorial

of his life whom most

Of all alive I loved! Orestes mine,

With other thoughts I sent thee forth than these

With which I now receive thee. Now, I bear

In these my hands what is but nothingness;

But sent thee forth, dear boy, in bloom of youth.

Ah, would that I long since had ceased to live

Before I sent thee to a distant shore,

With these my hands, and saved thee then from death!

So had'st thou perished on that self-same day,

And had a share in that thy father's tomb.

But now from home, an exile in a land

That was not thine, without thy sister near,

So did'st thou die, and I, alas, poor me!

Did neither lay thee out with lustral rites

And loving hands, nor bear thee, as was meet,

Sad burden, from the blazing funeral pyre;

But thou, poor sufferer, tended by the hands

Of strangers, comest, in this paltry urn,

In paltry bulk. Ah, miserable me!

For all the nurture, now so profitless,

Which I was wont with sweetest toil to give

For thee, my brother. Never did she love,

Thy mother, as I loved thee; nor did they

Who dwell within there nurse thee, but 'twas I,

And I was ever called thy sister true;

But now all this has vanished in a day

In this thy death; for, like a whirlwind, thou

Hast passed, and swept off all. My father falls;

I perish; thou thyself hast gone from sight;

Our foes exult. My mother, wrongly named,

For mother she is none, is mad with joy,