110
Choephori.
Her fiery plot, child-murdering;
Wretched, who burnt her son's coeval brand.
Born with him when he cried
First from the mother's womb;—
Like-aged with him it died, 600
When dawned his day of doom.
Antistrophe II.
Needs must we loathe another dame,
The bloody Scylla, known to fame,[1]
Who, lured by Minos' gifts of fine-wrought gold,
Neck-gear from Crete,—devoid of shame,
Nisos, her father, to his foemen sold.
Deep-breathing, free from care,
In slumber while he lay,
Ruthless she cut th' immortal hair: 610
And Hermes seized his prey.
Strophe III.
But since these direful woes have burst,
†Untimely, into song:—
Be the foul wedlock too accursed,
That doth this palace wrong.—
- ↑ Nisos, king of Megara, is said to have had on his head a certain purple lock, upon which, according to the words of an oracle, his life depended. Scylla, his daughter, knew it, and bribed by a golden necklace, the gift of Minos, king of Crete, she cut the fatal lock, and thus caused her father's death.
