Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/454

356 'Twas meet to think them,) and of them I asked

My father's arms, and all things else of his.

And they spake out, ah me! a shameless speech:

"Ο offspring of Achilles, all the rest

That was thy father's it is thine to choose;

But of those arms another now is lord,

Laertes' son." And I with many a tear

Rise up in hot displeasure, and I say,

In my fierce wrath, "Ο wretch! and have ye dared

To give my arms, before ye learnt my mind,

To any but to me?" And then there spake

Odysseus, for he chanced to stand hard by,

"Yea, boy; most justly have they given them me,

For I, being with him, saved both him and them."

And I, being angry, hurled all evil words

Straight in his teeth, and nothing left unsaid,

Should he deprive me of those arms of mine.

And he at this point, though not prone to wrath,

Stung to the quick, thus answered what he heard:

"Thou wast not where we were, but stood'st aloof

Where thou should'st not; and since thou speak'st to us,

So bold of tongue, with these thou ne'er shalt sail

To Skyros back." And hearing words like these.

And foul reproaches, now I homeward sail,

Out of mine own rights cheated by a man

Base-born, Odysseus, basest of the base.

And yet I blame not him so much as those

Who reign supreme; for all a city hangs,

And all an army, on the men that rule;

And they who wax unruly in their deeds

Come to be base through mood of those that guide.

Now my whole tale is told, and he who hates

The Atreidæ, may he be my friend and God's!