Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/447

Rh

To watch that eye of thine

For thine especial need; but tell, I pray,

What kind of home is his,

And in what spot he now may chance to be.

'Tis not unmeet to know,

Lest he should fall upon me unawares.

What place, what seat has he,

What path, or near, or far, does he now tread? Neop. Thou see'st this dwelling with its double door,

Its chamber in the rock.

Chor. And where is that poor sufferer absent now?

Neop. To me it is plain that he treads

This path near, hunting for food.

For this is the fashion of life,

So rumour runs, that he leads,

With swift darts shooting the game,

Wretched, and wretchedly fed,

And that here none wendeth his way,

As friend and healer of ills.

Chor. I pity him, for one,

Thinking how he, with none to care for him,

Seeing no face of friend,

Ever, poor wretch, in dreary loneliness,

Suffers from sore disease,

And wanders on in sore perplexity

At every urgent need.

Oh, how, yea, how can he his sorrows bear?

O handiwork of Gods!

Ο wretched men, who miss their life's true mean?

He, born of ancient house,

And falling short of none of all the line,