Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/552



light of morn!

Ο air that dost the whole earth compass round!

Oft have ye heard my cries of grief forlorn,

And oft the echoing sound

Of blows the breast that smite,

When darkness yields to light;

And for my nightly vigils they know well,

Those loathed couches of my hated home,

How I upon my father's sorrows dwell;

To whom in no strange land did Ares come,

Breathing out slaughter dread;

But she, my mother, and her paramour,

Ægisthos, smote him dead

With axe of murderous power;

As men who timber hew

Cut down a lofty oak, so him they slew;

And from none else but me

Comes touch of sympathy,

Though thou wast doomed to die,

My father, with such shame and foulest ignominy.

And, lo! I will not fail

To weep and mourn with wailings and with sighs,

While yet I see the bright stars in the skies,

Or watch the daylight glad,—