Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/422

324 Thou, in thy death, hast sown for me! Where go,

Among what men, I who in all thy woes

Have failed to help thee? Telamon, I trow,

My father, and thine too, will welcome me

With cheerful glances, full of kindly mood,

Without thee coming! Can he fail to frown

Who, e'en when all went well, but seldom smiled

Too pleasantly on men? What word of wrath

Will he now hide? What evil utter not?

Reproaching me as bastard, captive-born,

Who, in my coward, base unmanliness

Abandoned thee, Ο Aias, or in guile,

That, on thy death, I might thy sceptre wield

And rule thy house? Such foul reproach will he,

Rough in his mood, and vexed sore with age,

Vent in his wrath, by trifles light as air

To fiercest anger kindled. And at last

I shall be hurled an outcast from my home,

Bearing the name of slave instead of free.

Such fate awaits me there. In Troïa here

Many my foes, and few the things that help;

And this, all this, thy death hath brought to me.

What shall I do? Alas! how lift thee up

From this bright sword whose murderous point hath brought

Thee, wretched one, to death? And did'st thou know

How Hector thus, though dead, should bring thee low?

Now, by the Gods, look ye upon the fate

Of those two men—how Hector, with the belt

Which this man gave him, bound to chariot's wheel,