Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/580

482

Now it is time to hide

One's head beneath the shelter of the veil,

Or in the ships that glide,

Swiftly o'er ocean's tide,

On bench of rowers sitting swift to sail:

Such are the threats they fling,

The two Atreidæ, each a sovereign king,

Against me, and I dread

Lest I should lie there dead,

By fearful fate of stoning doomed to die,

Sharing the woe of him our lord and friend,

Whom shame and dark disgrace,

That none may dare to face,

As prisoner keep, and hold him to the end.

Nay, it is so no more;

For as the swift South-west,

That rushes on without the lightning-blaze,

Soon lulls its tempest roar,

So he is calm; and now his care-worn breast

Broods o'er new trouble, filled with sore amaze;

For to look out on ills ourselves have wrought,

Which no hand else has brought,

This of all grief and pain

Is hardest to sustain.

Ο sailors dear to me, my true friends still,