Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/366

268 Himself upon the earth, full oft he groaned,

Cursing his marriage that he made with thee,

That wedlock fraught with evils, and the ties

With Œneus made, how great a bane he found them

Wearing his life. And when from out the smoke

That clung around he turned his eye askance,

And saw me in the midst of all the host,

Weeping for grief, he gazed, and called on me.

"My son, come hither, turn not thou aside

From this my trouble, even though 'twere thine

To die as I am dying. But, I pray,

Bear me away; and chiefly, place me there

Where never mortal eye may look on me;

Or from this land, at least, if pity move thee,

With all speed bear me, that I die not here."

And when he thus had charged me, in mid-ship

We placed him, and to this land steered our way,

He groaning in convulsions, and ere long

Or living or just dead wilt thou behold him.

Such deeds, my mother, 'gainst my father thou

Wast seen to have planned and acted, and on thee

May sternest Justice and Erinnyes swift

Inflict their vengeance, if that prayer be right,

And right it is, for thou the right hast scorned,

Murdering the noblest man of all the earth,

Of whom thou ne'er shalt see the like again.

[Exit, slowly, and despondingly.

Chor. [To, as she goes.] Why creep'st thou

off in silence? Know'st thou not

That silence but admits the accuser's charge?

Hyllos. Let her creep off. Fair wind go with her now,

As she creeps on away from these mine eyes:

What need to vainly cherish vainest show

Of mother's name, where mother's acts are not?