Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/554

456 I know your love, yea, know its every part;

And yet I have no wish to stop the flow

Of tears and wailings for my ill-starred sire;

But, Ο my friends, who meet,

With true affection, all my heart's desire,

Suffer me thus, I pray,

To pine and waste away.

And yet thou can'st not raise

Thy father, nor with wailing nor with prayer,

From Hades' darkling ways,

And gloomy lake where all that die repair;

But thou, thus grieving still,

Dost pass, brought low, from evil one might bear

To that worst form of ill,

In which for deepest woe is no relief.

Ah me! why striv'st thou so

For such increase of woe,

Still adding to my grief?

Ah, weak as infant he who can forget

His parents that have perished wretchedly;

Far more she pleaseth me that mourneth yet,

And "Itys, Itys," wails unceasingly;

The bird heart-broken, messenger of Heaven.

Ah, Niobe, most sad!

To thee, I deem, high fate divine was given,

For thou in cavern grot,

Still weeping, ceasest not.