Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/233

There issued flame mingled with blood, a sweat
Rose on his flesh, and close to every limb
Clung, like stone-drapery from the craftsman’s hand,
The garment, glued unto his side. Then came
The tearing pangs within his bones, and then
The poison feasted like the venomed tooth
Of murderous basilisk.—When this began,
He shouted on poor Lichas, none to blame
For thy sole crime, ‘What guile is here, thou knave?
What was thy fraud in fetching me this robe?’
He, all-unknowing, in an evil hour
Declared his message, that the gift was thine.
Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm
Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot
Where the ankle turns i’ the socket, and, with a thought,
Hurled on a surf-vex’d reef that showed i’ the sea:
And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain
Being scattered with the blood. Then the great throng
Saddened their festival with piteous wail
For one in death and one in agony.
And none had courage to approach my sire,—
Convulsed upon the ground, then tossed i’ the air
With horrid yells and crying, till the cliffs
Echoed round, the mountain-promontories
Of Locris, and Euboea’s rugged shore.
Wearied at length with flinging on the earth,
And shrieking oft with lamentable cry,
Cursing the fatal marriage with thyself
The all-wretched, and the bond to Oeneus’ house,
That prize that was the poisoner of his peace,
He lifted a wild glance above the smoke
That hung around, and ’midst the crowd of men
Saw me in tears, and looked on me and said,
‘O son, come near; fly not from my distress,
Though thou shouldst be consumed in my death,
But lift and bear me forth; and, if thou mayest,
Set me where no one of mankind shall see me.
But if thy heart withhold thee, yet convey me
Out of this land as quickly as ye may.
Let me not die where I am now.’ We then,