Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/553

Rh No, no, I will not fail,

Like sorrowing nightingale,

Before the gate to pour my sorrows free,

My woe and sorrow at my father's doom.

Ο house of Hades and Persephone,

Ο Hermes, guide of dwellers in the gloom,

Thou, awful Curse, and ye,

Erinnyes, daughters of the Gods, most dread,

Whose eyes for ever see

Men foully slain, and those whose marriage bed

The lust of evil guile

Doth stealthily defile,

Come, come, avengers of my father's fate!

Come, send my brother back!

For I the courage lack,

Alone to bear the burden of this evil weight.

Ο child, Electra, child

Of mother doomed to all extremest ill,

Why thus in wailing wild

Dost thou unceasing pour thy sorrows still

For him who, long ago,

Caught in thy mother's base and godless cheat,

Fell by the fatal blow,

Our chieftain, Agamemnon? Yea, may he

Who planned this vile deceit

(If so to speak is meet)

Perish most wretchedly!

Ο daughters of the brave and true of heart,

Ye come to comfort me in all my woe;