Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/569

Rh Which Death begat and spotted dragon reared,

How can he hope to see the sun's bright flame,

Beyond to-day, by form fell, dark, and feared,

Of Hydra done to death,

While words of crafty breath

And deadly throbs of pain that seize and burn,

Caused by the swarth-maned monster, all his might o'erturn?

And she, (ah misery!)

Seeing a great evil to her home draw nigh

Of marriage strange and new,

Hath failed to scan aright the things she knew,

And now has cause to mourn

The alien counsel of fell converse born;

She pours, I trow, in fears,

A pelting rain of fast down-dropping tears;

And coming Destiny

Unfolds a subtle, great calamity.

The flood of tears flows fast;

Sore evil spreads, like which in all the past

Ne'er from most hostile foe

Came on the son of Zeus far-famed, a woe

That well might move to tears.

Ο thou dark point of war's victorious spears,

Thou broughtest then yon bride,

Won where Œchalia soareth in its pride;

And she of Kypros still,. [sic]

In speechless might, is seen to work out Heaven's high will.