The Bromsgrovian/Volume 2/Number 5/Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

by Alfred Edward Housman

For other versions of this work, see Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.

Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.

Alcmaeon.—Chorus.
Cho.	O gracefully-enveloped-in-a-cloak Head of a stranger, wherefore, seeking what, Whence, by what way, how purposed are you come To this well-nightingaled vicinity? My cause of asking is, I wish to know. But if perchance, from being deaf and dumb, You cannot understand a word I say, Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
Alc.	I journed hither on Ambracian road.
Cho.	Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
Alc.	Plying with speed my partnership of knees.
Cho.	Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
Alc.	Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my legs.
Cho.	Your name I not unwillingly would learn.
Alc.	Not all that men desire do they obtain.
Cho.	Might I then know at what your presence aims?
Alc.	A shepherd's questioned tongue informed me that—
Cho.	What? for I know not yet what you will say.
Alc.	—This house was Eriphyla's, no one's else.
Cho.	Nor did he shame his throat with hateful lies.
Alc.	Might I then enter, going through the door?
Cho.	Go; drag into the house a lucky foot; And, O my son, be on the one hand good, And do not on the other hand be bad. And then thou wilt be like the man who speaks, And not unlike thine interlocutor.
Alc.	I go into the house with legs and speed.
Chorus.
	[Strophe.    In speculation I would not willingly acquire a name   For ill-digested thought;   But, after pondering much, To this conclusion I at last have come:     Life is uncertain.   This I have written deep   In my reflective midriff,   On tablets not of wax. Nor with a stylus did I write it there, For obvious reasons: Life, I say, is not   Divested of uncertainty. Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls   This truth did I discover, Nor did the Delphian tripod bark it out,     Nor yet Dodona. Its native ingenuity sufficed   My self-taught diaphragm. [Antistrophe.    Why should I mention The Inacheian daughter, loved of Zeus,   Her whom of old the gods,   More provident than kind, Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,     A gift not asked for.   And sent her forth to learn   The unaccustomed science   Of how to chew the cud? She, therefore, all about the Argive fields, Went cropping pale green grass and nettle tops,   Nor did they disagree with her; But yet, however wholesome, such repasts,   Myself, I deem unpleasant. Never may Cypris for her seat select     My dappled liver! Why should I mention Io, I repeat.   I have no notion why. [Epode.  Why does my boding heart   Unhired, unaccompanied, sing   A most displeasing tune?   Nay even the palace appears   To my yoke of circular eyes,   The right one as well as the left,   Like a slaughter-house, so to speak,   Garnished with woolly deaths   And many shipwrecks of cows. I, therefore, in a Cissian strain lament,     And with the rapid, Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest     Resounds in concert The battering of my unlucky head.
Eriphyla (within).	Oh, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw! In deed, I mean, and not in word alone.
Cho.	Methinks I heard a sound within the house Unlike the accent of festivity.
Erip.	He cracks my skull, not in a friendly way: It seems he purposes to kill me dead.
Cho.	I would not be considered rash, but yet I doubt if all is well within the house.
Erip.	Oh, oh, another blow! this makes the third: He stabs my heart, a harsh unkindly act.
Cho.	Indeed, if that be so, ill-fated one, I fear we scarce can hope thou wilt survive.
*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠* A. E. H.