Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/478

380 Phil. O hands! What shame ye suffer, lacking now

The bow-string that ye loved so well, and thus

Made prisoners by this man! Ο thou, whose soul

Has never known a generous, healthy thought,

How hast thou tricked me, ta'en me in a snare,

Putting this boy I knew not, as thy blind,

Unmeet for thee, for me of meetest mood,

Who nothing knew except to do his task:

And, clearly, now he grieves, sore vexed at heart,

At all his faults, at all my sufferings.

But thy base soul, that ever peeps and spies

Through chinks and crannies, taught him but too well,

Guileless and all unwilling as he was,

The subtlety of fraud. And now thou think'st,

Ο wretch, to bind and take me from these shores,

Where thou did'st cast me forth, in friendless case,

Lonely and homeless, dead to all that live.

Perdition seize thee! That I oft have prayed,

But since the Gods grant nought that pleases me,

Thou laugh'st and liv'st, and I am vexed at heart

At this same thing, that I live on in woe

With many evils, flouted at by thee,

And those two chiefs, the Atreidæ whom thou serv'st:

And yet thou sailed'st with them by constraint,

By tricks fast bound, while me, poor wretch, (who sailed

With seven good ships, of mine own will,) they cast,

(So thou say'st, but they say the deed was thine,)

Dishonoured forth. And now why take ye me?

Why drag me off? What aim have ye in this?

I, who am nothing, long since dead to you,

Yea, am I not, Ο thou abhorred of Gods,

Lame, and ill-savoured? How, if I should sail,

Could ye unto the Gods burn sacrifice,