Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/567

Rh (So, as her mother told,

I tell that tale of old;)

And there the sad, pale face of sorrowing maid,

Thus wooed and won with strife,

Awaits her lot as wife,

Like lonely heifer wandering far in wildest glade.

Ο ye whose dwelling lies

By the warm springs that to the harbour flow,

Or where the tall rocks rise

And cliffs of Œta; ye who wont to go

Hard by the Melian lake,

And coasts where roams the golden-arrowed queen,

Where Hellenes counsel take,

And there at Pylæ famed their agora convene,

Quickly to you the flute

Shall raise in music sweet no tuneless strain,

But one that well may suit

The answering lyre from out the Muses' train:

For now Alcmena's son,

Who Zeus his father calls, returneth home;

With spoils that he hath won,

High prize of valour, now will he exulting come:

E'en he of whom we thought

Twelve long months, knowing nought,

As of an exile far upon the sea;